ohaguro or iron smile

Until the breakup of the Shogun-system in the 1860s, it was a fashionable practice for aristocratic married women, mostly—and some men, to stain their teeth to a gunpowder grey to black. Not only were dark things, like ebony and finely-worked lacquer, considered more aesthetically balanced, the dyeing process also acted like a dental sealant to help stop tooth decay, and even the latest modern techniques (also coming from Japan) that promise to eliminate cavities. The practice was called ohaguro in Japan, meaning something like iron-drink, and involved daily applications of iron-filings dissolved in a solution of vinegar and tea. There were comparable methods of achieving the same effect throughout Asia in the past, including using the dye of aubergine skin in China. In vintage Japanese prints and in traditional theatre performances, one sometimes sees a very darkly rendered mouth, but that apparently was not just goth lip-stick but also a way to evoke an ancient practice once outlawed and unfashionable, sort of like Western cosmetic discoveries of belladonna or permanent make-up, but now being revisited.

lobbyland or don't mess with the cheeses

European Corporate Observatory, which reports on fraud, abuse and the revolving door arrangement between government and business in the EU parliament, is trying to continue to raise awareness on this sometimes situation rank with hypocrisy and lobbyism that’s reached a dangerous point concerning food and the agricultural industry.
The EU Food Safety Authority (EFSA), a supranational organ that can dictate, among other thing, whether France gets to extend its moratoria on GM crops or Germany can continue to label its food as organic (Bio) or otherwise or if certain additives can enter into the food- chain, has a full complement of agribusiness advocates on its staff and threatens to relax restrictions and safeguards further. The EFSA will hold its annual conference and draft new rules at its base of operations the city of Parma, purveyors of fine hams and cheese, who has seen its domestic industry shocked by not just the peddled austerity in response to economic crises but also by a strong earthquake not so long ago. I am sure the venue appreciates the ceremony on some level, but this just further illustrates how austerity and tough-times are just code for opportunities for business to acquire something that’s usually not for sale on the cheap. Appointed representatives are not like our bodies, which generally demonstrate more intelligence than each of us and can adapt and even thrive despite our worst efforts, and ignoring what the politicians settle on is definite to our peril.

pauschal

Running up against an end of closets and filing cabinets to clear out, I get a little sad at the thought of history that gets inevitably tossed, especially in the rush of something like a base closure.

I found editions spanning the years from 1984 to 1992 editions of old community morale support activity calendars, typed and mimeographed with hand drawn illustrations up until those last years—the 1990s with colour printing, finished type-setting and glossy paper (full of advertisements too) like a high school year book from that era have a very different character. I’ll hold on to these—maybe some future anthropologist will find the contents of cultural interest. Looking back, similar organized tours are still chartered for service members and their families stationed in Germany, though such offers are made less intensely it seems and though many of the destinations have not changed, some are no longer there altogether and not only American military installations. Since 1989, also when the publications got glitzy but maybe lost some their charms, there were no more of these Hof (DE) border tours: “See one of the most graphic reasons why you’re in Germany.

This is a stimulating and thought-provoking tour of the wall that divides the free world from the Communist world. Children over ten years of age are encouraged to accompany their parents on this tour, as the comprehension of the ‘wall’ in its harsh reality can further their understanding of just why their sponsor is here. There are opportunities along the wall as the tour makes numerous stops to get a close-up view and give you further explanations. Also included is a visit to the Hof border museum. Military personnel must be in uniform. Itinerary is subject to change.” With the anniversary of the reunification approaching, such time capsules take on more significance. The concert line-ups on offer, KISS, Chris DeBurgh, Iron Maiden, DIO and the Scorpions, was also pretty boss, though Würzburg and Nürnberg are still stops on every European tour.

colophon

Mostly I tend to think that one should not mess too much with an established look, no matter how basic it is since it’s a part of one’s identity and recognition—although polishing and experimentation within limits, I think is perfectly acceptable.

We’re presented with pretty good and serviceable templates for use, and I suppose too that there comes a point of departure, best taken in small steps mostly, when one becomes a bit more sophisticated and curious with web-design to take strokes at something more than the standard quiver. 

Even if that’s just a bit of kerning and alignment that’s otherwise too subtle to notice. I wouldn’t want PfRC to become too busy and crowded and would like for the page to look sleek and composed. I am getting a little better—or perhaps just more conscientious, about placement and position and hopefully too making positive progress on having the patience and taking the time to fully unwind a thought, which still some times comes across probably as obtuse and obscure.

Content and scope aside, I did want to develop a nice new masthead that worked with the background as it is, nothing very ornate and overpowering but something a little more personal and unique. Matching the weight and character of a typeface to the idea (or lack thereof) that one has in one’s head can grow challenging enough on its own, and I respect those type-setters and artists who can turn out something very professional and know what tools to use with instinctual prowess, but try to add a cohesive image to that and I can certainly see why marketers, free-lance and consortiums, are vying for bids and commissions.

I am also learning why they say imitation is the purest form of flattery, though being derivative is usually asymmetrical. Though after some searching for inspiration and trying on own to conjure up something original and associative, I eventually settled on incorporating a logo from the Independent Wine-Makers of France (Vignerons indépendants de France), since wine and cheese go together, although there are plenty of other good pairings too.

In the process, however, I stumbled across plenty of motivating artwork and posters of a certain vintage and style, like the series on California cultivars (which incidentally replenished a significant portion of French stocks when the parent vines were killed by a blight in the 19th century; these vineyards then took decades to recover from the wanton neglect of the Prohibition Era themselves).

There were also several classic travel posters and campaigns that incorporated local, regional cuisine with allure, providing some good ideas and nostalgic impetus that will be certainly worth revisiting later as well.

diy or artisan class

In the month of October a century ago, the term, though not the concept, of Do-It-Yourself first entered our vocabulary. A magazine called Suburban Life introduced the words that have become short-hand for so many ideas in 1912, encouraging people to undertake their own projects, especially in carpentry and clothes making, sort of in counter-revolt to the spread of manufactured goods but also for reasons of economy.

The movement, really taking off in the 1950s through today, has continued to compliment and build upon as well as offer an alternative to the prefabricated, one-size-fits-all market. A price can’t be put on creativity and ingenuity, but moreover, there’s the sharing, show-and-tell aspect that has no comparison to commercial crazes that’s become a force all its own: found in home-improvement television, as well as the stores that keep crafters and makers well supplied, entrepreneurial websites like etsy and of course the subsets of cooking, independent film and music, blogging, mending, darning and repurposing and all the stories that go with them. In honour of this most auspicious and enduring culture, I plan to learn a new skill and create something this month. What crafty abilities of your own would you like to strengthen?

word-association or antonymy

I am far from sure that the semantics of opposites are a universal conception, ubiquitous across most languages—maybe big and little or long and short are passable everywhere but dog and cat or cat and mouse or even good and evil are not acceptable answers elsewhere. Maybe there is not always a real and handy word to express the idea of an opposite, though the concept is understood.
Doubleplusungood, or Penelope weaving and unweaving as she waits for Odysseus to return. There are too very fancy kinds of operative opposites, like hyperbole and its countermand litotes, exaggeration and understatement—though the same terms are not employed in the study of conics. Recently, I came across another pairing that I liked, although I am not sure quite satisfies the definition: phobia and soteria (φοβός και σωτηρία, the root of salvation). This is taken not only in the sense of the duality between fear and calm, but rather with the difference between almost clinical morbidity and paralysis and relief and the saving-grace called deliverance, being not afraid in proportion with the disproportionate aversion that the phobia represents. Not everyone has an unsalvageable disliking of specifically spiders and snakes nor generally of crowds or the great outdoors, but I think there would be in a clinical definition, should psychology care for what’s right and not just what’s wrong, of soteria complementary gradations of relief and unfear.

encounter at farpoint

One of my favourite bloggers, Bob Canada, presents a very thoughtful and well- constructed anniversary tribute to Star Trek: The Next Generation, which premiered on 29 September 1987, exactly twenty-five years ago today. It is hard to believe it has been that long ago and does make it seem like something’s a-miss with the whole space-time continuum.

buddhist “iron man” found by nazis is from outer space

In the 1938, an archaeological expedition was sent from Nazi Germany to Tibet as part of Heinrich Himmler’s Ahnenerbe programme, a project that sought to validate Germany’s hegemony through cultural and historic research of what was considered Aryan and some very creative and convenient revisions.

Much of their work involved fascination for mysticism and the occult—real Indian Jones stuff, and on this mission, members of the Schutzstaffel (SS) and scientific community brought back a trove of artefacts, including portraits of supremacy (studies of silhouettes and cranial measurements), seed samples from native grains, the robe of a Dalai Lama, volumes of holy books yet to be translated, and one iron rendering of the god Namtösé, one of the four heavenly kings of Buddhist mythology, which was catalogued as the “Eisenmensch.” The actual headlines used could not be improved upon.  They probably brought back this one statuette because it had a swastika, a traditional symbol of good fortune, inscribed in his chest but were unaware of the most unusual material that it was formed out of. University researchers in Stuttgart (where the idol ended up warehoused and nearly forgotten, sort of like the closing scenes where the Ark of the Covenant ends up) have just matched the thousand year old composition of the extremely hard iron to extraterrestrial origins and the makeup of other scattered fragments of the Chinga meteorite impact event over China and Mongolia eons prior. This was certainly not the first example of ancient peoples using meteoritic metals or possibly revering them by is probably the only graven image worked from such a piece from space.