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Post by tangerinesun on Dec 19, 2016 21:22:54 GMT -5
Thanks for finding the Furoshiki 1 video. I thoroughly enjoyed it, so much so that I eagerly sniffed out its sequel, Furoshiki 2 hoping for a return of those cute socks but found some other items of clothing instead. Furoshikis are so cool, especially the ones with different colours on each side. I keep meaning to get a big one as the small ones I've got for bundling things together are only just about big enough to wrap a paperback book which was what I'd wanted at the time, but they're no good for carrying the shopping home. Or I could just get a length of some cheap polyester fabric to make use of. Polyester is durable, can be "sewn" with a candle and holds a good knot which is also easy to undo again. If you get it right. Some of those followup apparel applications are just a tad farfetched. They left out scarf, belt, necktie, gang colors. Seven years on, www-dot-hizenya-dot-co-dot-uk is sadly defunct. Something didn't work out there. Furoshiki are fringe accessories, despite being introduced in the 8th century as I read. I bet more get used outside Japan than in. The Ministry of the Environment (MOE, no kidding) wouldn't mind changing that. They've published a handy furoshiki wallet card, but you're still from the countryside if you're going around with these outside of Kyoto. The floppy bunny-ear knots and general bagginess just isn't 21st-century, I guess. The Basic Knot she demos is just a reef knot, which is pretty hard to see with her hands in the way. It locks reasonably tight till you pull the short end up and forward, which magically jacks open the lock. Want to make an impression? Drop over to Hermès and tell them their 100cm silk and cashmere scarf meets your requirements for a stuff sack. Would you like that gift wrapped, sir? No thank you. You might have seen these items already. The basics but satisfyingly clear and well-produced. Furoshiki gift wrapping2008 NOV 27 by wraprecyclenow (02:45) How to wrap your presents in Furoshiki (cloth) to avoid using wrapping paper. Unlike wrapping paper (which usually can't be recycled) Furoshiki can be used again and again.Furoshiki pro-tips with gorgeous fabrics approved by Mick Jagger Kakefuda Kyoto - Famous Furoshiki Store2007 MAY 05 by Cameron Switzer (08:04) During Golden Week 2007 we visited Kyoto. During our stay we went to one of the famous traditional "furoshiki" or cloth wrapping stores. The quality and colour of the material was amazing. We even got to see the furoshiki that Mick Jagger bought last year!Furoshiki skills day at the mall FUROSHIKI NINJA – The Fusoshiki Prince・Foreign Event2009 OCT 24 by TokyoUrbanLife (07:09) ◎TokyoUrbanLife Video Channel (Google video)video.google.co.jp/videosearch?q=TokyoUrbanLife etc.The foreigners stayed away, but the home crowd still appreciated the demo.
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Post by tangerinesun on Dec 30, 2016 21:13:52 GMT -5
初声Hatsugoe, "first voice" (obscure term) Hatsugoe is an old-timey concept that's no longer very high on many people's lists. Too bad. We don't live so much with nature anymore. Each season has its characteristic voice.Geese honking in JanuaryFrogs chirping in AprilCicadas buzzing in SeptemberIt would depend on where you live, obviouslyWhen you hear a signature sound for the first time, it's like the sentinel of the season calling out to you to announce its arrival. This applies especially to the very first bird call of the new year. It'll be the first time a representative of 2017 speaks. So you want to be listening. The neighbor's chihuahua does NOT count Quasi-related: 初音ミク, Hatsune Miku. If you take apart the digital diva's name, it reads "first"+"sound"+"the future", like hearing the future for the first time. Superalloy Miku transforms into rideable Roddy. There's your future.
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Post by tangerinesun on Dec 31, 2016 22:24:56 GMT -5
Hatsuhinode, the one we all kind of knowJapanese New Year traditions, Hatsuhinode, the first sunrise of the year2017 January 1, 2017, Sunday by Muza-chan for Muza-chan's Gate to Japan muza-chan.net/japan/index.php/blog/japanese-new-year-traditions-hatsuhinode-first-sunrise-of-the-year 2013 JAN 01, Mt. Fuji from Dragon Pond in the highlands of Yamanashi PrefectureThe Okinawa correspondent says hiNew Year's Greetings through SNS 🌅 but thank you for being connected. Thanks again for your support this year! Wishing everybody a wonderful new year!!!
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Post by tangerinesun on Jan 9, 2017 4:45:08 GMT -5
Omikuji – Honorable Kami LotOnline omikuji generator from Shi-Yaku-Jin no Hokora & BigTime Interactive L: The Takasa Shrine has a jumbo shaker for fortune sticks R: Mikos staff a Hatsumoude booth with paper omikuji draw-boxes
Don't have time or airfare to get to a physical shrine this week? That's what the internet is for. Let the Kami guide you this year, but don't mess around drawing fortunes till you get one you like. They really hate that. So egotistical and disrespectful. 😤 If the predictions are good, you can take your fortune and keep it with you. If not so good, you can leave it in the bit bucket and hopefully the ill-luck with it. Welcome to shi-yaku-jin no hokoraIn association with Wisonsin's Sacred Cedar Shrine www.shi-yaku-jin-no-hokora.org/ Don't rip yourself off, approach the omikuji generator through the front gate of the shrine! 〜〜〜〜〜 A little background for the fun & fuller appreciation: Omikuji: Fortune-telling paper strips2012 MAY 31 at the Zooming Japan wiki zoomingjapan.com/wiki/omikuji-fortune-telling-paper-strips/ Picturesque, by native Japanese Omikuji - Fortune Paper2011 APR 21 by Matthew Bystedt for the Next Stop, Japan blog (updated 2015 APR 19) japan.apike.ca/japan_omikuji.html Personal account, photographs of specimens OmikujiApril 13, 2007 by Masaki Fukushima & Mamiko Tsunai for The Kyoto Project.org thekyotoproject.org/english/omikuji/ Short and factual
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Post by tangerinesun on Jan 25, 2017 13:19:23 GMT -5
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Post by tangerinesun on Jan 31, 2017 6:36:20 GMT -5
Suck Piggy Kin is raising up a dancer https://instagram.com/p/BPZ3c_7hcpG She came in a DIY Idol kit. You can grow your own star performer at home in as little as 16 years or so. It kills me that Japanese children speak perfect Japanese. Is that fair? They're just children!
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Post by thegl0r on Jan 31, 2017 17:37:12 GMT -5
The BBC have repeated a rather nice 2011 radio documentary about the decline of the kimono industry in Japan. There's loads of chats with beautiful sounding Japanese geisha, maiko and housewives about their Kimonos and talks with cloth weavers and kimono sellers about finances amongst other things. Only half an hour long, it is well worth a listen - even if its just to hear how expensive kimonos are. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017chpt picture upload sites
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Post by tangerinesun on Feb 1, 2017 11:57:36 GMT -5
The BBC have repeated a rather nice 2011 radio documentary about the decline of the kimono industry in Japan... well worth a listen - even if its just to hear how expensive kimonos are. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017chptThanks for that, it's a terrific half hour. All the shop talk about money sounds crass, but it *is* a key to the exercise, if we're talking about commercial survival of an industry. Umeko-san, the geiko they visited, is embarrassed to estimate the value of her collection, but I feel certain it's over a billion JPY. As a performer, that puts her in a league with the concert violinist who plays an 18th century Stradivarius. I don't feel so optimistic about the continuation of the traditional kimono without a healthy geisha community. It's not just a box full of fabric with an assload of rules and prescriptions. There's no meaning in it until worn as intended. Wearing as intended presumes an entire way of living. If you only put the thing on 3 days out your whole life, that's imitating and not participating. It would be like me dressing for an excursion in outer space, just to get photographed wearing the suit. It wouldn't be impossible to take the handicraft out of the garment. Looms were digitized long ago. The programmatic description of a fabric design isn't even a hard problem, we're only waiting on machinery that's up to it. If we had that, it would no longer take as much labor as tiling a basilica to make a fine kimono. But what then? Is it still artistic calligraphy if it's been spat out by an inkjet, no matter how perfectly? Isn't handcrafting where the soul comes from? We should also be thinking about belonging to a form of life that real kimono are wasted on. Kimono are like wild tigers. If they vanish it's only because there's nowhere left that they belong.
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Post by thegl0r on Feb 3, 2017 1:39:01 GMT -5
The BBC have repeated a rather nice 2011 radio documentary about the decline of the kimono industry in Japan... well worth a listen - even if its just to hear how expensive kimonos are. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017chpt...All the shop talk about money sounds crass, but it *is* a key to the exercise, if we're talking about commercial survival of an industry. ...the traditional kimono... not just a box full of fabric with an assload of rules and prescriptions. There's no meaning in it until worn as intended. It wouldn't be impossible to take the handicraft out of the garment... But what then?... Isn't handcrafting where the soul comes from? ...Kimono are like wild tigers. If they vanish it's only because there's nowhere left that they belong. In a documentary about industry there needs to be talk about money, and this one was about the kimono industry. Now, there are kimonos, and there are kimonos, and there are yakuta. Not all kimonos are made from expensive luxury silk brocade fabrics with metalic treads and which need to be unstitched each time to wash and clean them. Though often you may be able to get away with just removing the collar and washing and/or replacing it. Modern kimonos are also available in inexpensive, easy-care fabrics. Kimonos can be seen as haute couture, off the peg, cheap from a market stall, or bought second-hand for formal and informal occasions or as work wear for all sorts of jobs. But people still need to chose to wear them. Unfortunately the decline of the kimono as daily wear seems almost inevitable. Here they list western traders elbowing their way into the country, The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, and WW2 as contributing factors. Simplified, but fair enough. Amusingly they don't answer their own question, "Why is kimono fabric so narrow?" which also has some bearing on the construction details and the cut/style of the kimono. This English language vid showing how to fold a kimono shows where the seams are and so gives an idea of kimono construction... Due to using a fixed camera, a few details are hard to see, so if you're really interested, here's a nice vid in Japanese... youtu.be/rVArG4UZaSUA vague memory tells me that the reason why kimono fabric is about 14" wide is because many years ago one of the Emperors decreed it should be that width in order to make it easier for taxes to be calculated and collected from weavers all over Japan. Presumably the size of fabric available had an effect on kimono design. For the guys out there, here is how to put on a kimono after first getting one of the correct length for you (falling to just above the ankle)...
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Post by tangerinesun on Feb 18, 2017 2:52:18 GMT -5
Wall panel, W Cafe, OsakaIndia ink on polyester silk canvas (so I figure) http://instagr.am/p/BPB62Q6BNOZ Since you never get to see a performance with this kind of feeling, it was exceedingly fresh!! http://instagr.am/p/BPEiufMBCuL "Co-creation" at the Sanjyu Matsuri event —— a coined term indicating creating things jointly, friendly competition, vying competitively without competition ——. Received as a commissioned calligraphic work. Heartfelt gratitude! Thank you very much! They spelled kyousou, competition, as 共創 instead of the usual 競争. When you do that, it's pronounced the same, but the literal sense is "growing together" and it's used for cooperative production between rivals who might otherwise be working against each other. 〜〜〜 Cute, bug-eyed little Rei Shin, or Shin Rei as she wants to have it, is my traditional calligraphy crush of this moment, because she doesn't fool around with showbiz stylings. She just grabs that brush and *does it*. Serious as death, before, during, and after. She presents example after example with the catchphrase, "That is my work" in English, which is adorable and so her. She's performed at the Louvre (last year, kind of a tacky wall with garish cherry blossoms) and she does ink paintings in the Chinese style, which I don't really like so well either. My feeling is, her best writing is superb. For one thing, with her, a drawn character is a faithful record of the draftsman's gesture, they are two aspects of one thing. That is completely honest, and lets you see better into the nature of the characters and the artist both. In contrast, some people fudge around with the brush trying to tease out interesting details that may be quite attractive, but look designed rather than drawn. When they're done, you have an impression of seeing the author's hand in the work, but actually you can't and you don't. If that makes any sense. 〜〜〜 Here's a miniature action piece (goes to Instagram in a new tab): shin_rei calligraphy That is my work【美-beautiful-】 This is 行書体, gyou shotai, the semi-cursive or "running" script invented by Han Dynasty Chinese clerks as a compromise between legibility and speed. As much as possible, the goal is to get the sign on the paper as one continuous squiggle, and she's great at it.
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Post by thegl0r on Feb 20, 2017 8:26:17 GMT -5
Here's a miniature action piece (goes to Instagram in a new tab): shin_rei calligraphy That is my work【美-beautiful-】 This is 行書体, gyou shotai, the semi-cursive or "running" script invented by Han Dynasty Chinese clerks as a compromise between legibility and speed. As much as possible, the goal is to get the sign on the paper as one continuous squiggle, and she's great at it. So that's the system of short hand which the Han Dynasty secretaries in China used for taking down dictation in the office.
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Post by thegl0r on Feb 20, 2017 11:15:47 GMT -5
Something leaked out of my radio the other day and partially flooded my consciousness so that I had to run to the internet to do a double-check... It seems there's a fair few Japanese expressions about cats and not just "Big big, big cat". www.punipunijapan.com/neko-o-kaburu/You'll be so distracted by looking at the cute cat on the deceptive person's head that you won't notice the underhanded things that they're getting up to.
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Post by tangerinesun on Feb 20, 2017 20:34:04 GMT -5
So that's the system of short hand which the Han Dynasty secretaries in China used for taking down dictation in the office. As I understand, they were keeping permanent records, but the gyousho script is for general handwriting, like English cursive. There's another brush system called Soushotai, grass script, where the economy of gesture is so extreme that normal kanji literacy is of scant use. You have to re-learn how to recognize the entire dictionary in sousho form. I guess once you've mastered regular kanji, life feels empty without a some sort of challenge. There are so many specific writing styles, I don't know how a normal person can handle them all. There's a lot of info about this rescued and preserved from the old sci.lang.japan internet newsgroup. It's fascinating and highly daunting. We're not even talking about all the commercial script designs for specific trades and professions. Ramen houses have a tradition of using kanji forms everyone else has forgotten about. Handwritten stylessljfaq.org/afaq/shotai-handwritten.html
These are also known as mouhitsushotai (毛筆書体), or "brush" styles. Japanese calligraphy is known as shodou (書道) or just sho (書). Kaisho (楷書) or block charactersKaishotai is the most traditional square style of characters. Horizontal lines slanting upwards going from left to right. The kai in kaisho means "regular". This is the type of handwriting taught to Japanese schoolchildren... Gyousho (行書) or semi-cursiveGyoushotai, so-called "semi-cursive", is a flowing style of writing. Sousho (草書) or cursive calligraphySousho is an even more flowing style than gyousho , with each character often expressed by a single curving brushstroke. This style was the basis for the origin of hiragana. Characters in this style may be impossible to read without training.
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Post by tangerinesun on Feb 20, 2017 20:50:26 GMT -5
Something leaked out of my radio the other day and partially flooded my consciousness so that I had to run to the internet to do a double-check... It seems there's a fair few Japanese expressions about cats and not just "Big big, big cat". www.punipunijapan.com/neko-o-kaburu/neko o kaburu vid at YouTubeYou'll be so distracted by looking at the cute cat on the deceptive person's head that you won't notice the underhanded things that they're getting up to. Wolf in cat's clothing. That neko no te mo karitai proverb says, "I'd like to borrow even the hands of a cat." The gist is, I'm so overwhelmed, I'll gladly take any help I can get. Nekokuruma, "cat cart" or simply "cat" is the common name for a wheelbarrow. Or, could just be any sort of catmobile, I guess. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na — CATMAN!
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Post by tangerinesun on Feb 25, 2017 18:38:04 GMT -5
Cat Day. It happens that at Miss Millie's too, there are various neko-samas. Every day, like this. I go around and around the internet in little circles. This is from Cat Day, and to me it's pretty funny. The image is a contemporary painting by Tetsuya Noguchi. He makes a career out of minutely researching details of medieval samurai life, and sort of copy/pasting that into modern life. The results are always amusing, usually make modern life look pathetically ignoble, and ask questions about the relationships between NOW and THEN. It's not frivolous, because it's done with *so much serious.* Like it was his job. Artscape has a user-friendly writeup for a 2014 exhibition at the Nerima Art Museum in Tokyo. They tell me that there were real cat-eared helmets, but I'm pretty sure nobody ever took an armored cat for a trot. However, the artist explained that the basis is ancient horse armor, and people have always liked cats (not always to the benefit of the cat). Figure of an armored warrior taking a cat for a walk (Noguchi Tetsuya, acylic on paper, 2008)〜〜〜〜〜 Now... who posted the Twitter pic is Millie, the same Millie we knew as Yukarin, when she was Ritsuko Taneda's partner in Keihan Girl. And I'm on a Keihan Girl trip lately, so obviously this had to jump down my shirt collar. No way it could not. UPDATEWhile I'm thinking of it, there's this. Antique arms and cats at pinterest.com/pin/340444053061216337/
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