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gasha40k · 29 days

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At long last! It’s been a while since my last post, although I’m sure I could probably start every post by saying that. Warhammer has taken a back-burner position in my life for the past few months. I haven’t played a game of 40k since October! If I’m honest, this is primarily because of money. I’ll spare everyone the rant and say that 40k’s prohibitively expensive nature has become, well, prohibiting, I guess. But that being said, the fixation always returns. And return it has! In the last however-many-months since my last post, I’ve spent most of my 40k time playing Kill Team and avoiding finishing my reading of Angron: The Red Angel, but I’ve done a little bit of fun stuff on the side that I’d like to share.

First time using colored primer went pretty well! Certainly saved me a lot of time and Mephiston Red paint

Angron is progressing! Since my last post I’ve primed him and most of his subassemblies. I’m painting him sort of in half, with his left arm and wing detached, as well as his bronze armor plating. I’m doing this so that I can get in and color the backsides of his wings properly.

This guy has been a big challenge so far. A model this large is both imposing and resource-intensive, and I’ve done literally no painting as of recent, so I’m likely not going to finish him for a long while, but I’m excited for when I eventually do.

Formerly known as Urayen’s Reavers, the Eclipse Cavaliers are a band of opportunistic Aeldari Corsairs who all seek one thing and one thing alone: profit

Moving on. As I mentioned previously, I started playing Kill Team this year, and I gotta say, KT fucking rocks! The rules are super approachable and the small scale of the game allows for much more focused and cinematic battles. It’s also a lot quicker, which makes it much easier to get pickup games in, which means I can actually play some 40k sometimes nowadays.

These xenos boys are known as the Eclipse Cavaliers. They’re a band of scumbag Corsairs and my squad of choice. I’ve written a lot of backstory for these boys so as to texture my games a bit more for myself, so I’m gonna put all that stuff in another post where I can talk about these characters in a bit more detail.

The 2nd Company is lead by the boisterous Captain Zaraf Gorfried Redfale. They specialize in the utilization of heavy war implements, such as Gravis armor, tanks, and artillery vehicles

Now that we’re onto more conceptual subject matter, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how the Thunderbearers actually function as a Chapter. Each Company of the Thunderbearers controls a massive warfleet—much larger than the average fleet of most Successor Chapters—and acts as a semi-autonomous fighting force in and of itself, with the ability to prosecute independent campaigns so long as they remain aligned and in accordance with the Chapter as a whole. The 1st Company is functionally the “core” of the Chapter, made up of the Chapter’s command fleet, veteran company, and portions of the 10th.

The 2nd Company is technically the first of the Chapter’s autonomous fighting forces, and they’re also the only Company for which I own a Captain (the big Gravis fucker who I show off pretty often). The 2nd Company’s culture can largely be sourced to that of a feudal desert world known as Manticore. As the 2nd Company makes up a good amount of the Chapter’s infantry regiments, I felt it necessary to give them their own heraldry.

The special heraldry on their armor pays respect to Manticore in a few different ways. First and foremost, the red armor is a visual homage to the cold, crimson dunes that cover Manticore, but secondarily, it is a holdover tradition that comes from Manticoran warrior culture, wherein it was standard practice to color one’s armor with any number of red pigments so as to camouflage themselves in the dunes. Over time, different colorations of red grew to signify different things, with the 2nd Company’s crimson and gold coming to represent wealth and nobility.

I think that having a squad or two with a splash of red will really make my Space Marines pop out a little bit, and will definitely add some variation into my annoyingly uniform army. I’m thinking of doing little streaks of red on a few of the vehicles, as well, which will make them stand out too.

Speaking of vehicles, the Thunderbearers have received some reinforcements!

This is a Ballistus Dreadnought that I got my hands on through a friend of mine who was selling his Astartes. I kitbashed him a little but tried not to overdo it with the baubles, since my Redemptor is a bit of a piece. Design-wise, I tried to make this a sort of “Primaris update” of one of my first models, Big Harold.

The Aurum Eternatus, one of the Chapter’s most sanctified relics, is a Venerable Dreadnought whose chassis contains the body of the previous fallen Chapter-Master

The thing that I like the most about the Venerable Dreadnought is the ornate look to it. It’s got a lot of trim and fancy panels everywhere and kind of looks like a church-mech.

This aesthetic choice is most noticeable in the lascannon, in my opinion. Combined with the gold trim, the cool indented archway designs on the side panel of the las sorta gives “Gothic castle wall.”

While I couldn’t really replicate the trim, I did use a bunch of bits from the Venerable Dreadnought kit to up the Gothic factor. There’s also a noticeable lack of purity seals on Big Harold, which was something that I absolutely had to remedy. There’s 7 seals! Now we’ve got a proper 7-times blessed Primaris-scale lascannon to snipe tanks with.

Harold has sort of fallen out of use in my lists recently because, uh, Venerable Dreadnoughts do not exist anymore. Awesome! The older Dreads just aren’t as good as Redemptors as well, so Harold has sort of retired to a more ritualistic position on the Chapter.

In his stead, though, we’ve got quite a few new additions to the army alongside our Ballistus. Not included here is another drop pod and a bunch of new infantry units.

Sternguard Veterans of the Thunderbearers 1st Company

Here’s one of ‘em! This is my first squad of Sternguard Veterans, but I’m in the process of building another. Like the Ballistus, these dudes are as of yet unnamed, but I like them quite a bit! To be critical, though, I think I overdid it with some of the bits, but I’m sure the silhouettes will look less obnoxious once they’re all painted and voluminous.

My favorite of the bunch is probably the Veteran Sergeant. His heroic pose and classic bits give “default Space Marine.” And the Veteran on the left is using a bit of a unique shoulder pad that may or may not be a cleansed and sanctified Chaos relic, which may or may not be a common practice in the Thunderbearers Reclusiam Cataegis.

Next post will include the Eclipse Cavaliers and a new Thunderbearers character guy.

#warhammer 40k #miniatures #kitbash #adeptus astartes #chaos #xenos #thunderbearers #world eaters #eclipse cavaliers

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stitchlesswitch · 4 years

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Protection Spell Jar

For my partner

Important:

Please please please, customize this to You! This is not a strict set of rules where if you don’t have Exactly all the ingredients i used it won’t work. No no no, that’s not what this is about. Do what feels right (in terms of methods and ingredients) to you. This is meant to be inspirational, not something you should follow right down to the “T”. Maybe what I did or used resonates with you. Maybe you think it makes no sense. Adapt it to your style, to your current resources.

My first time trying spells was a disaster because I was putting way too much pressure on myself for it to be Perfect and Exact. This time, I just was like you know I’m just gonna take it casually and do what makes sense to me, and I’m very pleased with how it turned out. Believe!

Please Reblog with:

Comments/critique/feedback

Any additions on what you use for protection

If you happened to try it! I’d love to hear, even if it only inspired you to add a certain ingredient

Timing:

Days of the week corresponding to protection:

Tuesday

Thursday

Saturday

Moon phase:

Full moon

Dissenmenating

Last quarter

But I said fuck it. Wednesday starts with W, so does witch. Waxing moon? Attracting protection. Close enough for me!!! Like I said, your spell can still work even if you don’t abide by stringent standards.

Ingredients:

Majority of these items I got at the 99 cent store. A handful from Safeway. A couple from a local metaphysical shop. Comment which item if you would like to know specifically where I got it.

Solids/Other:

Jar

Jelly Beans! (Represents my partner, who I affectionately refer to as bean)

Coffee beans (protection, strength, and beans again)

Mediterranean Sea salt (protection)

Sand and sea shells (protection; I’m first and foremost a Christian witch, but secondarily I would say I’m a sea witch)

Teeth!!! (Strength, protection; one was mine from my wisdom tooth surgery, the others came from....you know “gold mining” ? In California you pay for a bag of dirt and it’ll have some cheap crystals in it? There’s a “paleontology” version with teeth)

White/brown/black (all correspond to protection—at least to me anyway) candle wax to seal

Black crystals for protection; I used some Smokey quartz pebbles. Other examples include howlite (even though it’s white), obsidian, hematite, and clear quartz can be used for any purpose/substitution.

Black salt—normal (or any) salt grinded together with the ashes of incense (in my case myrrh) for protection

Liquids

Lemon juice (represents my partner, who’s obsessed with lemonade)

Myrrh (protection)

Frankincense (protection)

Sandalwood (protection)

Dragons blood (protection)

Herbs

Bay leaf: “*partner’s name* is safe”

A smidge of basil, I believe? For protection

I may be forgetting something, so I may edit later.

What I did:

Condensed version: cleanse, combine, seal.

Tangent version:

I began by cleansing. My methods include:

I blow bubbles. I don’t know why I just do.

I also burned myrrh incense. I also burned sage (from my garden) and lavender and Palo santo wood (purchased before I knew it was endangered, sorry).

I also use music. I highly recommend the app Calm. It’s free (there’s the option to pay a ton for a premium version but I get by with the free). It has beautiful meditation songs and nature melodies.

I cleansed the space and then all of my tools. I say “I banish all negativity and only love light and warmth can remain.” I thank my tools for their use.

Combine the ingredients.*

I typically stated the reason why I was adding each ingredient.

I happened to go in the order of the categories above.

The quantity/amount is irrelevant or at least it was to me. Do what feels right

Seal with wax

Are you like me and can’t fucking wait for entire candles to burn down??? Tilt them sideways so the flame melts the wax and it drips down better. Let it pool till the lid is covered, then begin to drip the wax along the edge of the lid so it spills over.

Birthday candles melt even faster if you hold a lighter to the candle below the flame. Don’t be an idiot like me—stick the candle Onto the lid Before you light it.

Charge.

I shook it, kissed it, and set it on top of my case of black crystals. Then I accidentally pricked my finger from a crystal shard so I figured what the heck might as well put it to use so I smeared my blood on it, do ya thing blood cells.

I prayed, cause you know, I’m a Christian witch. I was like hey god. I ask that you please protect my partner and keep them safe. Please consider this spell jar an elaborate prayer, a physical representation of my prayer. I believe you’re okay with this because there’s nothing sinful about wanting/trying to keep someone safe. I also believe that you do not take issue with me using the power You Yourself gave me, and the correspondences You gave my tools, in order to help myself.

Miscellaneous notes

I wear four necklaces; one represents my craft, one represents my partner, one represents my dog, one represents my god.

My space had various candles and mood lighting, and a giant mess of all my witchy items and tools.

Importantly, I used dragons. My incense burner is a dragon statue and I have a small dragon fountain. In addition to small dragon figurines. Dragons are very relatable to me, and to me they represent protections. I’m not otherkin nor I worship them, but I’m quite fond of them and what they represent. For a Christian touch, I also used a candle of saint Mary also from the 99 cent store.

I didn’t caste a circle or write everything down in my BOS because I can Never Remember to 🙃 and that’s okay

#witchcraft #christian witch #witch #witchblr #witches #christian witchcraft #witch tips #witchsbroom #witchy advice #christianwitchcraft #spellbottle #spell jar #spells #protection spell #personal

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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 years

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#5yrsago Burning Man drone rules

This year, the Burning Man Organization has set out rules for drone operation on the playa, developed in concert with drone-hobbyist/burners who attended a summit at BMOHQ on July 17. The rules include a common-sense safety code, parameters on where/when/who can be videoed; fire safety rules; spectrum management procedures; and guidance on elevation and wind.

1. Be safe! Avoid flying over large crowds or densely populated areas. If you crash into a crowd you can seriously injure people. Follow the AMA safety code when flying any RC device. If you injure someone, you are responsible.

2. If your RC/UAV has a camera and you will record video/still photos from it, you need be aware of the video and photography guidelines in Black Rock City. Additionally, all RC/UAV with cameras need to register with Media Mecca*.

3. Don't fly near the airport. The airport is located at 5:00 and the trash fence. (See map)

4. Don't fly near the emergency helipad - Located near Point 1, and another by the airport, usually set up quickly (for emergencies, duh) so stay away from that whole area.

5. On the day of the Man burn (Saturday, September 1, 2013), RC/UAV, helicopters (be they full sized or models) or any other aircraft shall not be flown within the borders of the Great Circle (around the Man) from 7 AM until after the conclusion of the show.

i. The primary reasoning for this is that the pyrotechnics can be set off by static electricity which is caused by any aircraft, therefore creating a very hazardous environment for the pyrotechnics crew working on, in, and around the structure.

ii. Secondarily the possibility of loss of control of the aircraft could cause damage to the structure, Man Base, or harm the working personnel in the area.

https://boingboing.net/2013/08/19/burning-man-drone-rules.html

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chanoyu-to-wa · 4 years

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An Introduction to Book 4 of the Nampō Roku: Shoin [書院], Part 1; and Nōami’s Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō Ki [君臺觀左右帳記].

The title of the Fourth Book of the Nampō Roku is, as represented above, Shoin [書院].

To quote from JAANUS (http://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/), the shoin is “[a] large reception room developed in the Momoyama period, used by military leaders, daimyou 大名¹ to receive large numbers of visitors.” The term refers, only secondarily² (this aspect of the term is not even mentioned by JAANUS), to a private study (which, in Japanese is a shosai [書齋]), apparently through the term shoin (as an abbreviation of tsuke-shoin [付書院], meaning a dedicated alcove, with a built-in writing desk fronted by a large window, for reading and writing) being used as a sort of informal moniker for a dashi fu-zukue [出し文机].

Returning to the JAANUS definition, the shoin is “[t]ypically characterized by a set of formal features, collectively known as zashikikazari 座敷飾. These included a shallow decorative alcove oshi-ita 押板³, staggered shelves chigaidana 違い棚⁴, a built-in table tsukeshoin 付書院, and ornamental doorway choudaigamae 帳台構え⁵.”

The above photo, which shows the decoration of the oshi-ita and chigai-dana of the shiro-shoin [白書院]⁶ in the Nishi Hongan-ji [西本願寺]⁷, in Kyōto, is representative of the arrangement of objects in the setting to which this book is dedicated⁸.

The teachings contained in Book Four of the Nampō Roku ultimately derive from the two treatises of perhaps the two greatest of the dōbō [同朋], the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō Ki [君臺觀左右帳記], by Nōami [能阿彌; 1397 ~ 1471]⁹, and the O-kazari Ki [御飾記] of Sōami [相阿彌; 1472 ~ 1525] (who was the grandson of Nōami); though interpreted here, in this retelling, by Jōō.

While some scholars have speculated that the inexactitude found in Book Four was the result of the the oral transmission of this material over the centuries, the fact that a copy of Sōami’s densho was owned by the Imai family belies a lack of access by the machi-shū to the original form of the teachings. Rather, what we see, upon careful examination, is that Jōō seems to have deliberately simplified things, as can be seen when we compare the following sketch of the way to arrange the objects on the oshi-ita from Book Four (this sketch shows a candlestick, flower vase, incense burner, and kōgō),

with the same arrangement as illustrated by Sōami, below (here, in addition to the censer and kōgō, two flower vases and two candlesticks are displayed, as well as a kyōji-tate [香筋建] -- a vase-like stand for the implements used when placing the incense in the kōro).

Jōō not only reduced the number of utensils that were displayed, but often did so by using only one of the pair of objects prescribed by Sōami¹⁰.

The same can be said for Jōō‘s arrangement for the dashi-fuzukue (tsuke-shoin) above, versus that prescribed by Nōami in the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō Ki, below,

and by Sōami. below (whose sketch is clearly based on the one drawn by his grandfather, though with certain changes that evolved over the passage of time¹¹) -- the objects displayed in the sketches from the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō Ki, and the O-kazari Ki, will be enumerated in the comments below (the sketches from Book Four of the Nampō Roku will, of course, be dealt with in their proper place in the translations).

Consequently, we must recognize that Jōō clearly left his mark on the decoration of the shoin -- when it is used as a venue for the chakai -- by modifying the received practices, and it is his version of these teachings that are preserved in this book.

The contents of Book Four of the Nampō Roku consist of nineteen essays of varying lengths (though most of these are limited to a few sentences, at most), followed by sixteen pages of sketches (with little or no explanatory kaki-ire [書入]).

_________________________

¹Daimyou [大名]: daimyō.

²The Korean seo-weon [서원 = 書院], which refers to a kind of Confucian Memorial Hall to which a study or classroom was appended, seems to be closer to things like Yoshimasa’s Dōjin-sai [同仁齋], shown below -- which is referred to as a shoin in the writings of the early tea men, and was regarded as the prototype of the 4.5-mat tearoom -- than the original Japanese meaning would lead one to suppose. This use of shoin, then, may have come from the usages of the expatriate community with which chanoyu was originally identified.

³Oshi-ita [押板]: either a sort of low table, later a Korean folding-legged table (with the legs folded up into the box-like top), that was placed against one wall of a room (later, it was also placed inside the tokonoma), and on which objects (usually reminiscent of altar decorations) were arranged. This is the kind of oshi-ita shown in the first illustration in Book Four of the Nampō Roku.

Later the oshi-ita came to be built in (as a sort of prototype of the tokonoma, albeit on a greatly reduced scale -- this sort of alcove could only be used for objects; it was too shallow for a person to sit in like a tokonoma -- which was actually conflated with the mi-chōdai [御帳臺], a nobleman’s “seat of estate”). This kind of oshi-ita was, thus, a precursor of the ita-doko [板床].

The so-called Mittan-toko [密庵床] -- shown above -- while usually described as a tsuke-shoin (though the fact that it is attached to an inner wall, and so much too dark for reading and writing, rather argues against this interpretation), is actually rather similar to this kind of built-in oshi-ita. The fact that this alcove is found in a tearoom that forms part of a temple, argues for its being considered as an oshi-ita. (Technically, an oshi-ita has a strip of plaster below the board that forms the floor of the alcove, like a dashi-fuzukue, as can be clearly seen in the photo; an ita-doko, however, lacks this plastered section.)

⁴Chigaidana [違い棚]: a pair of staggered shelves, usually adjacent to the tsuke-shoin, on which art-objects were usually arranged. (Originally these shelves were used for books, rolled-up scrolls, and papers.)

A chigai-dana can be seen in the photo of the Dōjin-sai (under footnote 2), to the left of the dashi-fuzukue.

⁵Choudaigamae [帳臺構え]: this was the elaborately decorated pair of sliding doors through which the lord entered the large shoin (which functioned as his audience chamber). It opened onto a hallway that connected to the inner rooms. This doorway corresponds to the katte-guchi [勝手口] (sadō-guchi [茶道口]) of a tearoom.

⁶Shiro-shoin [白書院]: this term refers to a shoin where the pillars and lintels are made of unpainted wood. A shoin where these elements were lacquered is referred to as a kuro-shoin [黒書院].

⁷Nishi Hongan-ji [西本願寺]: this temple was created by Hideyoshi, along with the Higashi Hongan-ji [東本願寺], in an attempt to dissipate (through the establishment of competing institutions) the lingering power of the Ishiyama Hongan-ji [石山本願寺] (subsequently the site of Hideyoshi’s Ōsaka-jō [大阪城]). The Ishiyama Hongan-ji had been the head temple of the Ikkō-shū [一向宗], the Amidist sect (feared by Nobunaga and Hideyoshi) from which chanoyu derived the idea of “equality in the tearoom.” Most of the early chajin (whether Japanese or Korean) -- in the two centuries or so prior to the Edo period -- were affiliated with this temple.

⁸The objects demonstrated the lord’s wealth (and so power). But arranging these things tastefully showed that he was not simply a parvenu.

⁹The only extant versions of the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō Ki, however, are all based on the copy of his grandfather’s work made by Sōami. While the original Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō Ki was as much a catalog to the shōgun Yoshimasa’s collection as it was a dissertation on the way to arrange the objects in the shoin, much of this material was minimized to lists* when the book was copied -- probably because most of the objects had been destroyed when Yoshimasa’s storehouse was fired during the Ōnin wars. ___________ *Apparently Nōami provided a thumbnail sketch of each of the 165 paintings that are considered in the work -- allowing Yoshimasa (or his cultural advisers) to contemplate their selections without having to unpack large numbers of objects. Once the decisions had been made, an assistant could be dispatched to the storehouse to retrieve the desired pieces.

In addition to the four sketches that document the arrangement of objects on the dashi-fuzukue, chigai-dana, and o-chanoyu-dana, the stylized sketches of the various shapes of the classical karamono-chaire (which were still relevant to the aesthetes of Sōami’s day) also survive. Though, even here, the shapes which we associate with these names have evolved (often considerably) since the early sixteenth century (Sōami died in 1525).

Other utensils, such as chawan, kama, and bronze pieces, are described in brief text passages only, and then only by type. So the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō Ki speaks of things like white-porcelain and celadon bowls, rather than the Shukō chawan or Kazan temmoku. These descriptions seem to have inspired Yamanoue Sōji’s work, though the identifying details unique to specific objects added by Sōji were not included by Nōami.

¹⁰Things like flower vases and candlesticks were sold in pairs (for use as altar decorations -- both in China, and in Korea, it was usual for each family to have their own ancestor altar, usually displayed in the main room of the residence), which had to be maintained carefully so that they would continue to look like mirror-images of each other (otherwise the metal would patinate differently, causing them to look dissimilar). According to this way of thinking, a single piece from the pair would be virtually worthless -- an attribute that Jōō admired more and more deeply as he grew older.

¹¹Sōami produced the O-kazari Ki nearly 50 years after the text of the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō Ki was first set down by Nōami.

==============================================

Since at least a passing knowledge of the material discussed in the two classical dissertations on the decoration of the shoin would be helpful to an understanding of Book Four of the Nampō Roku, I decided to abstract all of the relevant illustrations from these predecessors, and reproduce them below (for the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō Ki), and in the second part of this introduction (for the O-kazari Ki [御飾記]).

◎ Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō Ki [君臺観左右帳記], was written by Nōami [能阿彌; 1397 ~ 1471], though the earliest of the extant copies (by Sōami) was taken from a manuscript dated 1476.

In addition to the following four sketches of arrangements¹, this document also contains a collection of illustrations showing the 19 varieties of chaire recognized by Nōami (which I have not included here since they are irrelevant to our discussion), descriptions of various other implements (such as the kama, categories of chawan, and decorative bronzes -- which presage the more specific material entertained in the Yamanoue Sōji Ki [山上宗二記]) -- interspaced with sets of rules that are similar to what we will encounter in the first part of Book Four of the Nampō Roku²).

1) The first sketch, which is titled shoin no kazari [書ゑんのかさり], shows the "original” (hon-taru beku [本たるへく]) arrangement of the objects on the dashi-fuzukue (tsuke-shoin).

From right to left, these are: a shumoku [執木] (a hammer-like striker for the bell); jiku-no-mono [軸物] (a scroll, which should be resting on a jiku-no-mono-no-dai [軸物臺], a wooden tray-like stand for a scroll); a katana [刀] (paper-knife), sumi [墨] (ink-stick), and hitsu [筆] (writing brush), resting on a hitsu-ga [筆駕] (brush-rest); a bunjin [文沈], or else a mokuho [墨普] (neither word has been identified, though the former seems to refer to a small stand on which an ink-stick can be stood, and the latter to a sort of bamboo tweezers used to grasp a stick of ink that has worn away to a tiny piece); a mizu-iri [水入] (water container); kanshō [喚鐘] (a hanging bell)³; a kenbyō [硯屛] (a small ceramic screen that keeps dust from blowing into the ink); a suzuri [硯] (ink-stone); gesen [牙籖] (paper-weight) -- “a single one is acceptable” (rather than a pair); an inrō [印籠] (box for name-seals and seal-ink), on a small tray (ko-bon [小盆]); a mizugame [水瓶] (tokkuri-shaped water container), on a small tray (ko-bon [小盆]), in which a flower is stood; and finally, “on this hook, something should be suspended.”

2) An arrangement for the chigai-dana⁴. The things shown are: a jikirō [食籠] (a set of boxes in which sweets or side-dishes are served); (below) an ishi-bachi [石鉢] (a decorative basin in which a viewing stone and sand are arranged); a kyūrō [毬炉] (unidentified, but it seems to be a kind of censer shaped like a ball, in which a pinch of crushed incense wood is burned -- a larger version of a sode-kōro [袖香炉]), placed in a special holder that is stood on a base; sō-kabin [双花瓶] (a flower-vase for a large number of flowers⁵), which “should be placed on a kanban [翰盤] (a low writing-table⁶).”

3) Another arrangement for a variant of the chigai-dana where the lower shelf is formed by the top of the ji-fukuro. Nōami’s commentary states that suspended (unsupported) shelves of this sort were made of shidan [紫檀] (red sandalwood), karin [花梨] (rosewood), or zōge [象牙] (ivory), which are apparently more rigid than the more usual materials employed in Japan.

The objects shown are: a kagami-ka [鏡家] (a bronze mirror on a special stand); zōgan yakki [象眼藥器] (an ivory- and mother-of-pearl-inlaid box for medicinal herbs -- things like Korean red ginseng, dried jujubi fruits, and candied ginger-root); a kabin [花瓶] (flower vase) on a small tray -- with the comment “a flower should be stood [in the vase];” a kishin-yakki [歸心藥器] (a small, treasured⁷ yakki -- perhaps referring to a type of antique lacquered medicine container that was sometimes used as a chaire), tied in a fukuro and placed on a small tray.

4) And, finally, the arrangement of the o-chanoyu-dana [御茶湯棚], where six kenzan [建盞六] temmoku are arranged on a tray (bon [盆]), with a taikai [chaire] in the middle of the tray (naka ni taikai [中ニ大海]); ukai-chawan, large and small, on a rectangular (or square) tray⁸; and a jū-jikirō [重食籠] (a stacking set of boxes for sweets or side-dishes, to accompany tea or alcohol).

__________________________

¹While Nōami is said to have included a large number of small sketches of the numerous meibutsu paintings that were housed in the shogunal repositories along with his assessments, these sketches have all been lost. What survives are the four sketches shown above, and the set of generalized illustrations of the classical karamono chaire (apparently intended to allow the reader to determine into which category his chaire fell, rather than as a way to identify specific pieces owned by Yoshimasa, at least in their present incarnation).

The illustrations reproduced above were taken from the commercially published document (Meiji 17 [明治十七年], 1884) of an Edo period block-printed version that was made from a sixteenth century manuscript copy of the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō Ki, that is currently held in the National Diet Libraries (collection call number 154-58). Though its antecedents are not entirely clear, this document seems to have been prepared from a handwritten copy of Sōami’s version of this material. (Sōami was possibly working on the assumption that his manuscript would be disseminated among the contemporary tea community, which may have precipitated certain editorial liberties -- the removal of the sketches of the kakemono, and the stylized nature of the depictions of the chaire -- that he took with his grandfather’s work, since its original audience, the inner circle of the Ashikaga shōgunate’s artistic advisers was already at a dead end: while the shōgunate nominally persisted until 1573, politically, and apparently culturally as well, it had already lost whatever relevance it once had.)

²Though we must make certain allowances for Jōō’s inclination towards simplification when we consider the teachings of Book Four in the light of those of its predecessors. These changes were of a similar degree to what can be seen when we compare his sketches of the arrangements with those handed down from Nōami.

Ultimately, at least for the modern practitioner of chanoyu, Jōō’s interpretations will probably strike us as the more fitting way to employ these conventions (since, from our perspective, Nōami’s originals will often seem overdone and cluttered -- the simplicity and minimalism championed by chanoyu during the Edo period, and after, were not always the norm, or reflective of what the contemporaries considered to be in “good taste”: Nōami strove to bring order out of the chaos of display as an indicator of wealth and power, while Jōō, the owner of the most impressive collection of meibutsu pieces since Yoshimasa, preferred to focus the attention of his guests on a select few pieces, to emphasize their quality).

³The commentary on this sketch states that, rather than being limited to the kanshō [喚鐘], as shown, various other hanging objects -- such as a tsuri-kōro [つり香爐] -- could be displayed here as well.

Bells of this sort were used to call the monks to convocation in the Zen temples in Korea, and it appears that this practice evolved into its use to inform the guests that the host was ready to serve them tea. Thus, though usually beautiful as art-pieces in their own right, the kanshō actually served a real function in the shoin setting.

⁴In the version of the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō Ki that was included in the Sadō Koten Zen-shu [茶道古典全集], another sketch showing an arrangement for the chigai-dana precedes this one. However, while that sketch shows a tray of incense utensils on the upper shelf, an incense container (referred to as a jin-bako [沈箱], “jin” apparently meant to indicate jin-kō [沈香], “light” aloeswood), and a medicine box (yarō [藥籠]) below -- all of which seem typical of what was being done a generation or two after Nōami’s day.

The comments that follow do not address the details of this arrangement at all. However, they do suggest variations on the objects displayed, so a sketch (but whether the one shown in the Sadō Koten Zen-shu, or a different one, cannot be known) may have been lost.

⁵Sō-kabin [双花瓶] actually means “a pair of flower-vases.” Since the sketch clearly shows a single large, basin-like vessel, perhaps sō [双] (which, in the original form of the kanji -- 雙 -- shows a brace of fowl gathered together in the hands) is being used to mean “a handful” -- in other words, “a vase [large enough] for a handful of flowers.”

⁶Kanban [翰盤] seems to refer to an ancient version of the laptop: a tray-like table with two short lath-like legs that rested on the lap (with one of the legs dangling down on each side, to keep the table from slipping off), for writing. A sort of tray-table. The word does not survive in the modern language.

⁷Kishin-yakki [歸心藥器]: kishin [歸心], which is usually translated “homesickness” (literally, “a yearning to return home”), here is equivalent to the expression shin-buku [心服] meaning admiration, devotion, esteem. Thus, a highly esteemed yakki. Such antique pieces were sometimes used as chaire (matcha originally being considered a medicine).

Jōō‘s antique take-nakatsugi [竹中次] maybe be an example of this sort of thing (it should be remembered that this kind of tightly-fitting lid is referred to as a ya-rō-buta [藥籠蓋], since it was originally employed on medicine containers).

⁸Ukai-chawan, dai-shō ni hō-bon [ウカイ茶椀、大小ニ方盆. Ukai-chawan [ウカイ茶椀] has not been identified, and might be a miscopying (for “usuchawan” [ウス茶椀] -- if the original page was torn or in a poor state of preservation, the katakana “su” [ス] could easily resemble “kai” [カイ]).

On the other hand, since the O-kazari Ki (see below, sketch 3) has dai-shō usuchawan [大小うす茶碗] on the corresponding sketch, perhaps this word was ukai-chawan [迂回茶碗] (where u [迂] means circuitous, indirect, and kai [回] means to go around, thus indicating chawan that were intended to be passed around the room, rather than offered to a single guest, after which it is returned), referring to the case where a single bowl of tea would be shared by all of those present.

In the period of the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō Ki, important guests were usually served an individual bowl of koicha. Then the cha-no-ato [茶の跡] -- the koicha remaining in the chawan after the guest had drunk -- was mixed with some more hot water, and this “thin tea” was shared by the guest’s attendants. It would also be appropriate to transfer this “usucha” to a different chawan from the one that had been used by the noble guest. Also, it is said that, when Yoshimasa prepared tea for his own attendants with his own hands, they asked him to make it thin (which would both make it easier to share, and mirror the conventional way of serving the left-over tea to the nobleman’s attendants), and then passed that single bowl of tea around, with each drinking a portion. This was not a usual practice, but something indulged in only by Yoshimasa’s attendants -- to spare their lord the trouble of serving tea to each of them. This may document this custom (since the Kun-dai Kan Sa-u Chō Ki was supposed to be reserved to the inner circle of the shōgun’s artistic advisers, rather than disseminated publicly, the lack of detail here would be understandable).

In this case, the size of the ukai-chawan that the host chose to employ on any given occasion (according to the text, a large and a small bowl were available to him for this purpose) was probably determined by the number of people who would share the single bowl of usucha.

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minister-of-silly-walks · 7 years

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K, m, n, and s for the ask meme!

Hello Hello Anon!

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

Ive got a couple? One is that Rouge didn’t actually die after giving birth to ace? She died maybe a couple of weeks later on the voyage with Garp to Dawn Island. Secondarily, just, Ace never got the chance to meet Sabo before he died. He died believing that he failed both of his brothers and broke two of his promises.

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

So many. I have so many. The one I’m contemplating now is a slight sequel to Ditty in Denver about the Gun Smuggling Charge on Neal’s record. Im also contemplating a Rise of a Region sequel?

N: Is there a fic you wish someone else would write (or finish) for you?

Yes. There are several. I have several plot bunnies that I post over on my writing blog @fromthedeskoftheminister entitled Who Wants A Plot Bunny where I offer those things up for adoption. My most recent was a OP/Check Please Crossover idea? I would also love to see a sentinel guide OP cannon AU where Marco is the Moby Sentinel, a secret more closely guarded than that of his DF power and Ace is his Guide but still has his canon backstory and all of the flack that happens with both of those things because the both of them are magnificently reticent bastards and Ace fights everything and Marco is just so damn mellow after all of the years because if he isn’t bad stuff happens and they both destroy the stereotypes of what a Guide & sentinel Should be because societal pressure. Luffy’s also a guide and doesn’t have a sentinel nor does he seem to need one and Sabo was a sentinel but Sabo’s parents still interfered because they didn’t want their son’s guide to be some piece of trash(they’re both null, they dont know how the guide sentinel thing works). Ace could have been Sabo’s guide but he “died” before that had a chance of happening.

S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?

I like long lost siblings and the issues/challenges that those present. I dont really have any particular trope that really does it for me. I like subverting Albino’s are Evil though. oh oh wait. I really like the one trope of i need you to disarm before I let you go in there. *places knife of table* “I said all of the weapons.” *adds another 2 knives to the pile.* “All of them” *Adds final weapon to the pile* whatever that one is called. I like that one. regardless of character.

#hello anon #answered asks #ask me things

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masterofpuppetsuniverse · 5 years

Text

They won’t understand you. They won’t. I know this, because I used to be on their side, stuck in a dead end office, working a shitty job, making decent pay. My family and friends were convinced I’d lost my mind when I gleefully leaped into the unknown abyss of cooking. I suppose they thought it was a phase I’d soon grow out of. Could this be you? Maybe finishing high school and are contemplating a life in the kitchen, or are already in culinary school. Maybe its not you, but rather someone close to you. Whatever the circumstances, if you’ve gotten this far, I implore you to keep reading.

Regardless, keep reading.

Most will never know what it’s like to make a living as a professional cook or chef, and that makes me smile. It’s something of which I am arrogantly proud. No, not because I think we’re better than anyone, but because of the fact that to be a really good cook or chef it takes tremendous physical, mental and emotional fortitude. Most people don’t have, nor appreciate the gifts we’ve been given, and this often includes our front of the house counterparts.

Seven days a week, we show up willing to get our asses kicked. We sign up for this in exchange for an opportunity to express ourselves through food. There’s no such thing as weekends or holidays. We might get a random Tuesday off, and if we’ve put in the proper dues and happen to be in cahoots with the chef, we just might have the good fortune of being exonerated from working the dreaded Sunday morning brunch shift. No one wants to work Sunday morning. We work longer days than just about anyone. Days start early and end late, typically when the rest of the western world is changing into their PJs, brushing their teeth and hopping into bed. The length, isn’t the hard part though, its the depth. Fifteen hours on your feet is grueling enough to scare away some fence-straddlers, but on top of that, consider the kitchen atmosphere where everything is either excruciatingly hot or sharp as hell. Cooks scurry around cussing, the printer spewing out tickets as fast as it can, and for hours every inch of one’s body is physically tested. Emotions are tested, and sometimes you will fail that test. You’ll break into frustration mid-shift, relying on a teammate to help pull you through. Your mental strength will be tested — misreading tickets, overcooking steaks, undercooking pasta, or completely blanking the fuck out on any number of things, once again having to rely on a teammate to pull you through. You’ll do the same for him — it’s how we survive. Close call finger-nicks and tears shed while chopping onions don’t phase us, not even secondarily. Screaming hot 50 pound pots of salted water simmer away, not boiling fast enough most of the time. When the potatoes or pasta are ready to come out, chances are a dry towel is nowhere to be found, and lacking time to search, we somehow make do, most likely further searing the callouses up and down our already damaged hands. Pain is an after thought, it doesn’t phase us. It can’t, or the whole ship sinks. We owe it to the warriors next to us to keep going. There will also be a point mid-shift, when you’ll have to make a dash to the dry storage pantry, or the walk-in cooler. Darting across the obstacle course of the kitchen typically includes maintaining one’s sense of balance while leaping across oil-slicked tile, dodging pans flying in the vicinity of the dish pit, and having to weave in and out of fellow line cooks, then back into our place on the line. This is all to be done without dropping your supplies, or worse, disrupting the rhythm of the team. Disrupt the rhythm, and we all go down with you. This takes serious skills. To create the rhythm necessary for success on the kitchen line takes hours and sometimes years working together as a unit, in the trenches, slugging it out, together. Next to the military in full fledged combat, a group of guys and gals in the kitchen know teamwork better than anyone.

Let’s say you made it to the end of the service. By now several hours have elapsed since the first tickets came chirping through the printer, and the apron draped around your neck now resembles something your dog might have chewed to hell after having splashed through the mud. You are filthy, but pots are done flying across the kitchen, flames from the burners are dulled to mere pilot lights and for the first time all night, you have a minute to breathe. A Red Bull sounds pretty good right about now, or traditionally, a cigarette in the cool fresh air outside of the kitchen hits the spot for most chefs. The burns on your hand have probably blistered already, and now that you actually have a minute, the pain hits you. The slightest of breaks and its back to business identifying prep needs for the following day. It’s the easy part of the night, coasting home, after a dozen hours afoot. Now, the challenge is powering through when your mind is occupied with fantasies of beers, shots, the dive bar across the street and the pretty new waitress whose name you’ve already forgotten.

If there is one thing I’ve learned as a chef, it is that we are always learning to adapt —rolling with the punches. We put ourselves out there as artists and creators. Its a beautiful thing to have the opportunity to express ourselves through the creation of food, and the food we craft should be an expression of who we are. What we create is just as much of how the world has shaped us, as it is us shaping the way we see the world through our food. Unfortunately, most diners don’t connect with our perspective. They want their food, their way, and it pisses us the hell off. Chances are, if you aren’t a chef, this has been you, and we have undoubtedly bitched about you to our fellow cooks. If you’ve ever put your work out into the world, you know how much it stings to have your work not appreciated as you intended. This is what keeps us up at night asking ourselves how could I do it better, and what should I have done differently? It eats at us if we let it.

Don’t let it.

Chances are your family, friends and virtually anyone close to you will be unsuccessful in understanding the life you have chosen for yourself, but maybe this letter helps, just a bit. If so, they might understand why your mind is racing at 2AM after a 400 cover Friday night, and why you can’t celebrate Mother’s Day brunch with the fam. Perhaps now they might understand why every square inch of your body hurts most of the time, and how there really are no sick days in restaurants. They might understand why we settle for grossly underpaid wages, and hopefully they can read between the lines, and figure out why we bitch about customers upon getting off of work. They might understand how the stress from our jobs might lead us to have a few cocktails, which might be followed with a few bad decisions. Above all, if nothing else, maybe they will see that we can’t imagine our lives any other way.

I’ll take a hand full of burn blisters, some achy knees and the hankering for a cocktail at the end of the night, over ever having to sit at another desk miserably debating whether or not to shove needles through my eye balls. Living this life means we get to be creative. It means we get to showcase our skills in the heat of battle, feeling the adrenaline rush of sloshing through the trenches with guys to our left and right. These are guys we’re lucky to call teammates. It means we get to be creative and stand proud for something we believe in. We get to sleep with a certain piece of mind and awaken the following morning hungry for more. Even if it means suiting up for brunch every now again, we get to make a difference in the lives of people around us, in the best way we know how. We get to make them happy, and we get to through food.

Promise me this:

Show up every day looking to make the most of it. Learn from the best, seek to be the best, and once you are on your way, teach others to be the best. This life won’t be easy. It will be damn hard, but it will be worth it, and in the end you will have lived a life of which you are proud, one that’s yours, and in doing so, you get to make the world taste a bit better in the process.

Cook Your Ass Off,

Chef Chris Hill

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