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Post by tangerinesun on Feb 27, 2017 16:03:54 GMT -5
Cycling is not only funJapan Air Self-Defense Force Mt. Takao Sub-Base "Red Impulse"2016 MAY 26 by SankeiNews (01:16) Members of the "Mt. Takao Red Club" from the JASDF Mt. Takao sub-base display stunningly graceful feats of acrobatic riding on bicycles imitating fighter aircraft. You red that rite. Japan's Air Self-Defense Force has an acrobatic drill team known as Blue Impulse, similar to the US Navy's Blue Angels. There can be only one Blue Impulse. Not many seats available on that team. What if your desire is greater than your skill and seniority as a military pilot? What if you're stationed at a nothing air force sub-base near Mt. Takao that's home to no aircraft whatever? For you, there is Red Impulse — the drill team that performs on folding commuter bikes with fairings of painted wood and plastic foam-board that look like kiddie-car F-15 fighter planes. It's a volunteer unit. No pay. You provide your own craft. The entrance qualifications: "motivation". Completely serious. Hiroyuki Kobayashi photo ©2016 with zero permission.Elite Airborne "Red Impulse" Bicycle Acrobats Born At A Base Without Aircraft2016/06/02 by the staff of Cyclist, the cycling news magazine of Sanspo.com cyclist.sanspo.com/258350 〜〜〜 Once gasoline was scarce, motor transport expensive, heavy, and unreliable. Horses were reliable, but still hard to preserve and no good for long hauls. Human-power was practically free, but rather weak. That held true across Asia until after the post-war period. So military forces had their own bicycle corps for real. Ginrin (Silver Ring) Unit of the Japanese Imperial Armyja.wikipedia.org/wiki/銀輪部隊 Were wacky extremist experiments ever tried? Sure they were! God bless the late Victorian era. Corporal Snake-Eye's "Come to the British Air Force Page!" Mk.2 (Japanese)blog.livedoor.jp/janome_gotyou/archives/45931261.html Brass mountain gun on a tandem tricycle carriage (Pope Mfg. USA, 1895)
As one cycling blog put it, "This appears to be a publicity stunt." But I suppose, a stunt aimed at getting lucrative military contracts for real. If you're running away from something, a small rear-facing cannon could double as a momentary-impulse rocket motor.
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Post by tangerinesun on Feb 27, 2017 18:23:37 GMT -5
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Post by thegl0r on Mar 2, 2017 14:06:27 GMT -5
Is this a sign that the Japanese are taking their obsession with cats a little bit too far? But then the book has also been translated into English. There's a section on collecting the cat hair, saving it until there is enough, and then how to craft the cat hair into something... ...cute? front cover about the authorIf you're interested in having a go at using up all your cat hair and need inspiration, new copies of the book are available here on Amazon and there's also loads of second hand copies or you could get yourself the kindle edition.
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Post by tangerinesun on Mar 2, 2017 15:18:04 GMT -5
Is this a sign that the Japanese are taking their obsession with cats a little bit too far? But then the book has also been translated into English. If you're interested in having a go at using up all your cat hair and need inspiration, new copies of the book are available here on Amazon and there's also loads of second hand copies or you could get yourself the kindle edition. Yes. It's pretty fringe whether you are a crafter or a cat person. If I liked spending time that way, I'd totally get a copy of the book, because the shedding season is upon us. No coincidence there. Years ago a young woman in NYC tried to start an internet-based business in boutique sweaters made of cat hair (no lie). I don't hear anything about her lately. She didn't seem much of a farmer or garment industry person at all, just a why-not kind of experimenter. Cat hair an amazing material, finer and silkier than angora. If you pick your cat correctly. And you've got to pick a lot of them to get a bale. Those chain-mail gloves they wear in commercial fish processing houses wouldn't be a bad accessory to have for shearing.
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Post by tangerinesun on Mar 3, 2017 15:25:41 GMT -5
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Post by tangerinesun on Mar 17, 2017 18:12:14 GMT -5
Bisen gets small Wall-size calligraphy for businesses is what pays for the vacations in Cambodia. This scale is good for the soul. And you can work on a lot of characters cheaply. http://instagr.am/p/BRsYQ18hXlN Kyōfu —horror— At this range! The tip cohesion is amazing… the size of the characters is 1cm… For 2,000 yen she'll gladly sell you the brush, but the hand is all up to you.
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Post by mikado-AKA-Shoknifeman on Mar 21, 2017 23:27:41 GMT -5
Great stuff, as usual, guys... my artist friend in Osaka (Tomoko) is also doing the cat art thing! (Funny thing, her family name, is KATaoka!!!) image hosting no registration
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Post by tangerinesun on Apr 6, 2017 12:40:12 GMT -5
'Tis the Seasonhttp://instagr.am/p/BSikT55gF3l A stack of three shots. What is that sakura-crazed bird? Brown-eared bulbul, glad you asked. They'd rather have fruit, but they'll take nectar if that's what there is. That's a pretty big animal for the nectar-sipping lifestyle, but nobody doesn't like cherry blossoms.
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Post by tangerinesun on Apr 8, 2017 23:14:16 GMT -5
Two approaches of the sakura-hito (cherry blossom fans) Cherry blossom viewing is peaking in Tokyo One way is the Japan Times Way, seen here (4 pics): http://instagr.am/p/BSnmoKYgsNV Massive scale — avenues, spotlights, lanterns, picnics, boat rides — I'm drunk on sake, bury me in blossoms. Another way is concerned with a moment's discovery of the essential urge of the tree to bloom, as in this little Insta-gimme from the girls'-life illustrator Wataboku: Both ways have their followers, but one is much less noisy.
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Post by tangerinesun on Apr 22, 2017 21:21:59 GMT -5
Paper tiger→ How to play with the Edo toy 'zubonbo'. Place it in a corner of the room, etc., and fan with a hand fan. Whereupon the zubonbo walks, flies or goes backwards! This movement ~ (laughs) Asakusa zubonbo lion or tiger omamorifromjapan.blogspot.com/2011/08/tokyo-folk-toys.html [ scroll down halfway ] Zubonbo is a refrain of the lion dance, with no special meaning.
The small paper toy dates back to about 1785 and was sold at the Asakusa Kannon Temple.
It has the form of a lion or a tiger. The legs are made of little shijimi clams, like a horseshoe. They were the "fishing weight" to balance the toy. But it can lift up if you put it in front of a small folding screen and use a hand fan to bring air under its belly.
This was signifying "To rise from your bed". This toy was an amulet to recover health fast, and often given to ill people.
This toy fell out of favor in the Meiji period, but was revived for some reason in Hiroshima.
Shijimi clams were a speciality of Edo.I changed some language to make this easier to understand.
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Post by thegl0r on Apr 28, 2017 22:57:23 GMT -5
Paper tiger→ How to play with the Edo toy 'zubonbo'. Place it in a corner of the room, etc., and fan with a hand fan. Whereupon the zubonbo walks, flies or goes backwards! This movement ~ (laughs) Wow, I love that. It looks like fun. I wanna make one! But the one shown in that vid looks kind of difficult. So I had a quick look for inspiration and found a vid of a kid playing with what looks to be a home-made one that they'd done themself. That one looks more approachable. One day I might have a go at making one. It won't have come from the temple, but I'll never get to go and by making one myself I'd get to experience this.
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Post by thegl0r on May 8, 2017 15:57:38 GMT -5
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Post by tangerinesun on May 8, 2017 16:42:47 GMT -5
You know how they can be at the BBC. They have issues.
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Post by thegl0r on May 8, 2017 17:58:41 GMT -5
You know how they can be at the BBC. They have issues. Whoops, sorry. But at least you are lucky in that YouTube can come riding to the rescue with all of its getouts concerning any "rights issues". Someone has uploaded the BBC's "Cherry Blossom time in Japan" but with lots of adverts. Hmmmmmmm!
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Post by tangerinesun on May 10, 2017 0:04:44 GMT -5
YouTube can come riding to the rescue with all of its getouts concerning any "rights issues". Someone has uploaded the BBC's "Cherry Blossom time in Japan" but with lots of adverts. Hmmmmmmm! Springwatch in Japan: Cherry Blossom Time at YTWe can talk about the value to you of the getouts sometime, but this is a much better than average hour thanks to visiting the right people and places. So, respectful moderately deep bow to Research and the videographers. Thanks for the cool linkings. The show is there because it's a recorded broadcast. Certainly not from the vaults at BBC. They tried to make it blockbuster dramatic. But it's not Hanami Wars. I had never heard before that the most favored cherry variety is all propagated by hand from cuttings. Calling that cloning means they can't botany, but transforming the whole nation artificially a tree at a time with shovels is the one phenomenon the show actually undersold. I'm worried a little to know that 80% of Japan's cherries from south to north are a monoculture that can't even fertilize itself. It does keep the rotten fruit off the sidewalks, but if an insect or a fungus ever started liking those trees... what a nightmare. I'm curious as to how they did the time-lapse flyovers. Just the way it sounds, I guess. Two passes with a GPS-enabled camera drone a week or so apart. It gets a bit much if you watch it all end to end, but still technically pretty cool. The regularly-spaced CM blips are supposed to insert the ads that are to buy the acquiescence of compensate the rights-holders. None of them actually got served, so something is out of whack there.
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