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nasa · 4 years

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What Would NASA Imagery Experts Pack for the Moon?

We are one step closer to landing the first woman and the next man on the Moon, and we want to know: What would you take with you to the Moon? 🌙

We are getting ready for our Green Run Hot Fire test, which will fire all four engines of the rocket that will be used for the Artemis I mission. This test will ensure the Space Launch System — the most powerful rocket ever built — is ready for the first and future missions beyond Earth’s orbit to the Moon.

In celebration of this important milestone, we’ve been asking you — yes, you! — to tell us what you would pack for the Moon with the hashtag #NASAMoonKit!

To provide a little inspiration, here are some examples of what NASA imagery experts would put in their Moon kits:

“The first thing that went into my #NASAMoonKit was my camera. Some of the most iconic photographs ever taken were captured on the surface of the Moon by NASA astronauts. The camera has to go. The hat and sunscreen will be a must to protect me from the unfiltered sunlight. Warm socks? Of course, my feet are always cold. A little “Moon Music” and a photo of Holly, the best dog in the world, will pass the time during breaks. Lastly, I need to eat. Water and gummy peach rings will go in a small corner of my pack.”

— Marv Smith, Lead Photographer, NASA Glenn Research Center

“I may not always pack light, but I tried to only pack the essentials — with a couple of goodies. I get cold fairly easily hence the blanket, extra NASA shirt, hat and gloves. No trip is complete without my favorite snack of almonds, water, sunglasses, lip balm, phone, and my headphones to listen to some music. I figured I could bring my yoga mat, because who wouldn’t want to do yoga on the Moon? The most important part of this kit is my camera! I brought a couple of different lenses for a variety of options, along with a sports action camera, notebook and computer for editing. The Van Gogh doll was just for fun!”

— Jordan Salkin, Scientific Imaging, NASA Glenn Research Center

“The first thing I thought of for my #NASAMoonKit was the first book I ever read when I was learning to read. It is about going on a journey to the Moon. I really liked that book and read it many times, looking at the illustrations and wondering about if I would ever actually go to the Moon. Of the many belongings that I have lost through the years from moving, that book has stayed with me and so it would, of course, go to the Moon with me. A family photo was second to get packed since we always had photos taken and volumes of old family photos in the house. Photography has played an important role in my life so my camera gear is third to get packed. As a kid I spent a lot of time and money building rockets and flying them. I bet my rocket would go very high on the Moon. I also like a little candy wherever I go.”

— Quentin Schwinn, Scientific Imaging, NASA Glenn Research Center

“I couldn’t go to the moon without my two mirrorless digital SLR cameras, lenses, my 120 6x4.5 film camera, several rolls of 120 film, my singing bowl (for meditation), my wireless printer, my son’s astronaut toy, several pictures of both my sons and wife, my oldest son’s first shoes (they are good luck), cell phone (for music and extra photos), tablet and pen (for editing and books), my laptop, and my water bottle (I take it everywhere).”

— Jef Janis, Photographer, NASA Glenn Research Center

“I’m taking my NASA coffee mug because let’s be honest; nothing is getting done on the moon until I’ve had my morning coffee out of my favorite mug. I’m taking two cameras: the 360-degree camera and the vintage range finder camera my father bought during the Korean War when he was a Captain and Base Doctor in the Air Force. I’m also taking my awesome camera socks so I can be a fashion embarrassment to my family in space as well as on Earth. The lucky rabbit is named Dez — for years I have carried her all over the world in my pocket whenever I needed a little good luck on a photo shoot. She’s come along to photograph hurricanes, presidents, and sports championships. Being from New Orleans, I would love to be the first to carry out a Mardi Gras tradition on the moon, flinging doubloons and beads to my fellow astronauts (especially if we are up there during Carnival season). I also want to take a picture of this picture on the moon so my wife and son know they are with me no matter where I go. Lastly, it’s a well-known fact that space travelers should always bring a towel on their journey.”

— Michael DeMocker, photographer, videographer & UAS, Michoud Assembly Facility

“I couldn’t go to the Moon without my camera, a 45-rpm vinyl record (My husband’s band — I really want to know how a record sounds in space. Gravity is what makes the needle lay on the record so will the change in gravity make it sound different?), a book to read, a photograph of my daughter, my phone or rather my communication and photo editing device, a snack, and I definitely couldn’t go to the Moon without my moon boots!”

— Bridget Caswell, Photographer, NASA Glenn Research Center

#nasamoonkit #moon #travel #packinglist #artemis #photography #explore #adventure #space #astronaut

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cruisercrusher · 4 years

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Dicktiger week day one— birthday 🎂 🎂🎂

Dick was cold when he woke up.

Which was not a new thing. He’d been finding himself getting cold quite frequently in the last few days. March wasn’t exactly known for being the warmest of months, and he and Tiger had been steadily making their way northwards. And, being on the run was kind of just like that.

But he wasn’t cold because of the icy wind outside. Although there was a draft— these cheap motel rooms were far from five star.

The bed itself was cold.

Also not a new thing. Tiger rose early to pray at dawn, every day without fail, and always stayed up after that. Dick always tried to sleep in as much as he could. Rest so thoroughly evaded him at night, after all.

The room was cold. Again, not because of the draft. Dick lifted his head and looked around the small space, and realized he was completely alone.

He jolted, a flash of worry like lightning making him bolt upright. He almost threw himself out of bed and into his gear when halfway through the action he spotted the handwritten note on the bedside table.

Wait here.

Dick frowned. So Tiger had just left with only those instructions, not telling Dick that he was going, when he would be back or what he was doing? They were supposed to be a team. You were supposed to communicate with your teammates.

Look, he knew that Tiger didn’t like working with him. Fine, Dick didn’t need him to like working with him. But they still needed to work together.

He sighed and pushed himself out of bed anyway, knowing he probably wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep after that shot of adrenaline.

First thing Dick did was open up their med kit and dig around, looking for a painkiller. He’d woken up with another headache. It seemed like he was constantly having headaches lately, of various degrees of pain, but he kept smiling through it.

Being on the run was not fun. It never is fun. He could act like he was having fun and make jokes and poke the bear that was Tiger’s temper until he lost a finger all through it, but really, it was not fun. Between the fights and the car chases, and the bouts of banter, in the quiet moments when all they could do is keep running or try and get as much rest as they could before they start running again… everything caught up to him.

Too much had happened in the last… year? Two years? He didn’t know, his grasp on time was slipping— too much had happened that he hadn’t processed and he was paying for it now.

And moments alone were the worst of all.

Suddenly having to go off all his meds all at once because there wasn’t time to pack anything or bring anything with them other than the clothes on their backs did not help either.

Seriously did not help. In fact, Dick felt like shit.

He found a little bottle of pain meds. He shook it. It was mostly empty. He sighed again and took one. Dry. Just to spite himself.

Dick wished Tiger had told him he was going somewhere— he would have asked him to grab some Advil if he got the chance. He’d even have thrown in some puppy dog eyes and a ‘pretty please’.

Luckily, he didn’t actually have to wait that long before the door to their room unlocked from the outside and creaked open.

Tiger walked in, stone faced, but in a way that looked like he was trying hard to keep his expression blank. Even still, there was a slight furrow to his brow, that seemed to stick through his every waking moment. He was holding a box.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” the other spy said upon seeing Dick sitting at the flimsy table. He walked over and set the box down on the table in front of him, then took a step back and folded his arms. “Here.”

Dick looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. “Is this some sort of prank box? A spring-loaded clown doll isn’t going to jump out at me if I open it, right?”

Tiger scoffed. “Of course not. Just open it.”

So Dick opened it.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, exactly, but it wasn’t a birthday cake.

It was a pretty typical store bought cake, with white icing and red, blue and yellow little fondant balloons decorating the top, around the fancy cursive letters that read ‘joyeux anniversaire’.

He blinked first down at the cake, then up at Tiger, a look of obvious confusion on his face. “Huh?” He said, quite intelligently if you asked him.

“It is a birthday cake.” Tiger grunted. There was a hint of red in his cheeks. He probably wasn’t expecting to have to explain himself.

“Yeah, I can see that.” Dick deadpanned. “But what for?”

Tiger frowned. “It is your birthday.”

Dick blinked again. “It is? Shit, I didn’t even notice the date. Wait, how do you know my birthday?”

“It was in your file. I read it when we first were assigned partners.”

“And you remembered?” Dick smiled, and Tiger blushed harder and looked away. “And you— you got me a cake?”

“It’s customary.” Tiger grumbled. “If you don’t like it—“

“No, no! I do like it! I love it!” Dick looked back down at the cake, then at Tiger again. “I— I mean— you—“

His smile started to crack and crumble as he stammered. “You… care…?”

Tiger frowned as Dick’s whole expression started to dissolve and his eyes went distinctly glassy. Dick quickly started to wipe at the tears that pooled there, though yet to fall. “Sorry— Sorry.” He muttered. “I just— I should say thank you. This is… really nice.”

But for some reason speaking those last few words just made things worse for himself, and Dick turned away with a single, gasping sob, before Tiger could see him fall apart. Why now, he internally lamented, why do I have to have a break down now?

“Uh—“ He heard from behind him, and Dick could easily imagine the confused expression that must be on Tiger’s face. The man wasn’t exactly the emotionally supportive type, that was Dick’s job. He felt bad for making Tiger witness this mess— especially after the other spy went out of his way to do something so nice for him. Tiger didn’t deserve this.

The chair across from him scraped across the floor as Tiger pulled it out from the table, and creaked loudly when he sat down. “Richard,” he said, and Dick turned further away, hiccuping a little. “Are you… okay?”

No. Dick wanted to say. I’m not okay.

(Well if you wanted honesty that’s all you had to sayy I never want to let you down or have you go it’s BETTER OFF THIS WAY for all the dirty looks the photographs your boyfriend took remember when you Broke Your Foot from Jumping Out the Second floor I’m NOOOTTT OOOOKAYYY IM NOT—)

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, I’m fine, Dick also wanted to say. He didn’t know why, but he was always hesitant to tell people when he wasn’t doing alright. He never liked to burden people with his load of shit, especially not when they needed his help more.

But Tiger wouldn’t buy it for a second, and while he may not have been the emotionally supportive type Tiger also didn’t take any bullshit and wouldn’t appreciate Dick just lying to his face like that.

Though Dick was sure that absolutely no one would be convinced if they were in Tiger’s place, watching him cry his eyes out because of a birthday cake, and he tried to tell them nothing was wrong, literally through tears.

“No,” Dick said. “I’m not okay.”

Okay okay, enough of that.

“I can see that.” Tiger retorted, even though he was the one who asked in the first place. Dick decided to cut the guy some slack. He sniffed, wiped the tracks of tears off his cheeks as his (fucking annoying) crying slowed to a stop. He looked at Tiger over his shoulder.

“I… sorry, it’s just been… a rough year. A rough couple of years, actually.”

He didn’t elaborate any further. He probably didn’t need to. Tiger didn’t prompt him to elaborate. He probably didn’t need to, either. Dick suspected Tiger knew already about (most of) the shit that had made these last few years so rough. Dick didn’t know how Tiger knew, but Tiger had this way of knowing pretty much everything.

Maybe he was secretly a meta. Probably not, but maybe.

Dick turned more fully in his chair to sit in it the right way, except he pulled a foot up onto the seat to tuck his knee into his chest. He looked at the cake again. It looked, in all honesty, pretty good.

He just… wouldn’t think about the calories. He could do that much, pretty simple— eat some cake and not stress about the calories.

And if the sugar made him break out, then whatever. He didn’t care if Tiger saw him in an aesthetically imperfect state. And he knew that Tiger didn’t care about it— they’d been on the run for a hot minute and had only just a few days ago managed to get a hold of some toothbrushes. Tiger’s beard was scragglier than it usually was. Neither of their hygiene or grooming habits were exactly peak at the moment.

Besides, Dick thought with a smirk— despite the lingering wateryness of his eyes—, Tiger was into him regardless of poor hygiene and unwashed clothes, and regardless of how much Tiger insisted he hated him. Dick had caught him practically gazing longingly at his collarbones the other day— his collarbones! Dude was on a whole other level of both repression and desire if he was looking at Dick’s collarbones as opposed to his more popular assets.

But Dick appreciated that. He’d made a comment once on how frustrating it was that everyone was more focused on his ass than anything else about him, and Tiger hadn’t even glanced at his backside since. So he was a man with taste who also respected boundaries.

Also, he got me a birthday cake. He went out of his way to get me a birthday cake. That’s not really something you do for someone you hate. Dick thought, and smiled back up at Tiger, wiping away the last traces of his tears. Tiger eyed him suspiciously.

“What?”

Dick smiled wider. “You like me.”

Tiger coughed suddenly, looking away. He glared down at the floor. “I do not! I told you before, I can’t stand you, and— and I cannot wait until I no longer have to spend even a second in your infuriating presence.”

“Yeah, yeah, blah blah you’re going to kill me someday yada yada. Why’d you get me a cake, then?” Dick teased him.

“It— well—“ Tiger stammered, something that Dick had never ever seen before. “I… wanted… I thought you would like it.” He admitted. Dick’s smile softened.

“I do like it.” He said, “Thank you.”

Then he sniffed, for some reason the tightness in his throat came back and his eyes once more looked suspiciously dewy. Tiger got a slightly constipated look.

“Don’t start crying again. Please.”

Dick laughed. “I won’t, I won’t.” He said, hoping he wouldn’t. “It’s just… been a while since anyone did something so nice for me without an ulterior motive.”

He shot Tiger a look, but it was still teasing. “You haven’t got an ulterior motive, right?” Tiger sighed.

“I wish I did. Now are you going to eat that thing or not?”

“Oh, right.”

Tiger handed him a travel fork from one of their packs, then reached back down into the pack and started rummaging around. Dick wasted no time in plunging the bamboo fork right into the cake, breaking through the icing and pulling away a generous bite of what was revealed to be chocolate cake. Tiger looked back up as Dick brought his fork up to his mouth, and stared at him incredulously, with no small amount of disgust. Dick paused.

“What?”

“You’re just going to… eat the… and not even…” Tiger searched for words. Dick shrugged with a pout.

“It’s my birthday cake, I’ll eat it however I want to.” He pushed the cake box more towards the center of the small, round table. “Want some?”

The other spy looked between Dick, the cake with the one bite taken out of it, the fork in his hand, and back at Dick.

“You can just eat from the other side. I promise you won’t catch any cooties.” Dick offered, nudging the cake forward a little more. Tiger huffed and didn’t say anything, but still took out the other fork and stabbed it almost violently into the side of the cake closest to him. Dick finally ate his bite of cake, grinning around the fork. (Wow, this is good cake.) (Just don’t think about the calories.)

‘Cooties… ridiculous.’ He heard Tiger mutter under his breath. He ate another bite of the cake, his qualms about Dick’s lack of table manners seemingly behind him. “I shouldn’t have done this. If I had known you had forgotten it was your birthday I would have just let the day pass quietly without any fuss.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.” Dick said it like he was teasing, but he and Tiger both now knew it was true. “Hey, you know what would make a great birthday gift?”

Tiger raised an eyebrow at him. “What, the cake wasn’t enough for you?”

“Nope,” Dick smirked. “The only thing that can satisfy me…” he paused for dramatic effect, “is a hug.”

Tiger groaned. “Absolutely not.”

Dick didn’t mean to let his face fall. He meant to brush it off with a laugh, but then his smile slipped and he couldn’t catch it before it was simply gone. Tiger noticed. Dick cringed.

It would be nice if some cake and a little bit of banter were enough to fully lift his spirits, but unfortunately it just wasn’t cutting it.

He was still cold.

Tiger sighed and stood up. Dick looked away, chewing at his lip.

(Yeah, so maybe Tiger did care, but that didn’t necessarily mean he would never exploit Dick’s moments of weakness. He was still a spy, Dick had to remind himself. He was still a spy and everything Bruce ever instilled in him was telling him not to trust him.)

(But he trusted Tiger anyway. So maybe he was an idiot, he didn’t care. He just needed to be not so all encompassingly alone in this world right now.)

Tiger rounded the table so that he was standing next to Dick’s chair, positively towering over him. “Stand up.”

“What?” Dick blinked.

“Stand up.”

Dick stood up. Tiger had been standing so close to his chair that when he did he was nearly chest to chest with the taller man, and Dick felt his heart speed up involuntarily at the proximity.

Almost as soon as Dick was on his feet, Tiger was uncrossing his arms and wrapping them around Dick instead— one arm around his back pulling him close and one hand cupping the back of his neck, and if Dick didn’t know better he’d describe it as tender. Gentle.

Tiger didn’t do tender or gentle.

So how could you explain this, then?

Dick couldn’t see Tiger’s face like this, and he couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of sour expression he might have right now. Dick didn’t care. Tiger was— Tiger was warm, he was so warm, the heat seeping through Dick’s clothes and skin and all the way down to his bones.

He stifled a gasp and snapped his arms shut around Tiger’s back, clinging way tighter than was called for, but Tiger didn’t say anything.

Everything was going to be okay. Things sucked right now, but Dick wasn’t alone. Tiger was there, and he cared, and that was all Dick needed.

When Dick fell asleep that night, in a different but just as shitty motel room, pressed against Tiger’s side, he was warm.

#heehee #dicktigerweek #dicktigerweek2020 #dicktiger #writing #my writing #fic #my fic #will post ao3 link later #sorry im posting on mobile i will add a read more link in a bit

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ginnyzero · 4 years

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My Fashion Connection

I’ve been trying to pin down lately why I love fashion and fashion design. Because I don’t love clothes and designing clothes and the choosing of fabrics because of the glitz and glam of high end runway shows and the glossy pages of Vogue magazine and adulation of famous design houses. Most of that I didn’t even know about until I went to school. I didn’t choose fashion because of any of those things. I really wanted to go into Computer Game Design because of games like Myst.

Growing up in a very small town in the middle of the southern tier of New York, fashion wasn’t anything that anyone in our town was interested in except the town pageant queen who had a ‘reputation.’ It’s dairy country. My town was and is much more interested in dirt bikes, hunting and fishing and kegger beer parties. There were a couple of families that were more well to do and worked at Cornell or IBM and thus wore nicer clothes but out of a town of say 50 to 100 people, there were more cows and farmers and retirees. It’s the type of town when two of the young people marry each other, the entire town becomes related.

My mother is a home sewer. I hate the term sewer in professional capacity because it has the connotations of a house wife sitting at home making amateur garments. My mother made a lot of my sister’s clothes growing up and when she started sending me to Christian schools with dress codes, she also made clothes for me. (Mostly jumpers.) Eventually she either got tired of sewing or felt that we needed to buy things to keep up appearances and she stopped. (This ended up with us shopping in budget discount overrun boutique shops. Yes. A thing. Family Dollar and Dollar General didn’t exist yet! And mother hadn’t discovered the “joys” of the Salvation Army and second hand or they simply weren’t close enough to shop at.)

In a tiny town, you have to drive almost an hour in every direction to get to anything that remotely resembles a fabric shop. Except, between our tiny town and the city of Ithaca we got lucky, because out in a nowhere more nowhere than our nowhere was a tiny fabric shop run by a petite old woman named Leona.

To get to Leona’s shop, you took this very twisty road over and through the hills and turned right when you finally hit another ‘major’ road. And then off to the left less than a mile was a huge stand of pine trees and in the middle of these pines was a dirt drive. You’d drive up the hill between these tall pines the rocks in the dirt crunching under your tires that opened onto a clearing on top of a hill that held a farm. Leona ran her shop out of her home, a one story mixture of a red roofed, white trailer with an add on to make it an L shape. The barn hadn’t been kept up and the red stain was fading and the barn was falling apart. You parked on the edge of the drive, hoped it hadn’t rained lately and it wasn’t pure mud so you could get back out. (If you got stuck, there was always the local farmer with a tractor and chains to pull you out.) You had to park on the edge because despite the fact the farm wasn’t an active farm, she rented out the land and your cars needed to be out of the way for the tractors to get through.

She had the shop in the add on built on the back of the trailer. Firewood piled up next to the screen door and cats lounged everywhere. Leona liked hoarding things so the walkway had gnomes, garden statues and benches and wheelbarrows and yes, there was a tiny garden windmill in the middle of the circular drive. If it was winter, salt crunched under your boots and you had to walk carefully across the ice covered mud slush. If it was spring or summer, there were flowers peeping up among the grass.

And once you crossed the threshold, warmth, Leona smiling with her curly short white hair and the measuring tape around her neck behind the measuring counter. Bolts and bolts of colorful and textured fabrics lined the walls and the blank spaces of walls over tables were old fashioned wall paper in dark red with ducks or cream and pink rose prints and warm golden colored wood panels. Painted sawblades provided decoration. The clock might have been a novelty item, a cow or a cat or even something with shears for the hands. I can’t remember. (There might have been all three.) It smelled mostly of sawdust, dust and in the winter, the sharp smell of a burning fire from the potbelly stoves. Leona’s help were also middle aged or older ladies like her and they weren’t quite as friendly, but they were helpful.

Leona stocked her shop by going down to NYC and buying overruns from the warehouses. (Overruns are fabrics that designers don't end up using and fabrics manufacturers make too much of because they predict more sales than they make. Most fabric retail stores are stocked by overruns.) She mostly had colorful cotton prints and upholstery fabric. There was a little fashion fabric and by the time I hit high school, she had things like stretch velvet. She mostly sold to quilters and people like my mother. Cornell doesn’t have a fashion design program, only a science textiles program, but she’d occasionally get students. Her hours were irregular. I don’t know if she ever turned a profit. She encouraged touching the fabric. (Though she didn’t like children taking bolts out of the shelves for good reason.) She didn’t mind that I wandered about away from my mother. She always remembered me no matter how much time had passed.

But every time I go into a fabric shop, there is still that bit of magic from going to Leona’s. When I returned from college, I wanted to go and show Leona some of my projects. She died before I got the chance and I still regret that.

Professional shops like Mood, Britex, B&J’s and to an extent the discount fabric warehouse that I used during college in San Francisco make me shake my head because the workers don’t always feel helpful. They don’t make you feel like every customer is important. They aren’t like Leona, as frail as she was, with her sunny smiles and slightly raspy voice, glasses, and cheerful attitude and love of textiles.

I also had Barbie. I’ve talked about Barbie and my love of Barbie. I would play with Barbie rather than with baby dolls. (My baby dolls took lots of naps according to my mother.) And I loved the clothing packs. I loved dressing and undressing her and trying new outfits out of the outfits I had. Barbie was a safe present to buy for me when I was growing up, because a) that meant my group of Barbie’s got new clothes and b) if this Barbie had different color hair or skin then I got more variety in my Barbies. (My favorite was the long red headed mermaid with the teal outfit. This was back when the tail was a “Skirt” you could take on and off.) I had maybe one Ken and I inherited a lot of clothes from my older sister who grew out of Barbie about the time I started getting interested. Some of them were homemade but I couldn’t get my mother to make more and she wouldn’t teach me how to sew to make them myself. (In fact, she said it was too hard and downright discouraged it. Guess who doesn’t really like sewing? Me.)

Today, I love Monster High and Ever After High, but if they’d existed when I was a child, I wouldn’t have gotten them because of my parents’ extreme dislike of anything related to monsters, ghosts or Halloween. (I am a November child people. This is ridiculous. Come on, I share a birthday with Bram Stoker. OKAY.)

And somewhere in that time, (1992 apparently, man, I was younger than I thought) when I was getting a pittance of an allowance and had saved money from Christmas, I had enough money to buy a new Barbie or a Crayola Fashion Design stencil/tracing kit. This was before Project Runway. This was before the idea that these Fashion Drawing kits were thought to be remotely popular. No one thought that little girls might like drawing clothes! (Go figure.) The Easy Bake Oven was still the biggest and most innovative thing for a girl’s toy. But Crayola came out with a stencil kit with a bunch of papers that had design outlines, and pattern rubbing plates and a light box. Everything in the kit was meant to fit in the light box. The light box was plastic, pink and ran on D batteries (not included bummer.) And I had just enough money to buy it or a new Barbie. (I think my only other difficult choice that compares to this was the Star Craft Battle Chest and something else and I chose the Battle Chest.)

(I can't believe I found a picture of that, someone is selling one on ebay.) Because, I mean, a new Barbie would only give me one set of new clothes, with this fashion design kit I could draw clothes, lots and lots and lots of clothes. I had always been an artistic child. I liked drawing. This had never really been encouraged except in the “here, have another set of colored pencils, pastels, watercolors, no lessons included.” So, here was Barbie in paper form! I didn’t have to take the clothes on and off. I could just trace what they had on the sheets or try to come up with stuff myself.

Pages of my Fashion Design Kit Now

I’m not going to say I was very good at it. The point was, I had fun, this was something to do that didn’t involve playing a game on the computer or reading a book or practicing my piano and I hadn’t gotten into writing at this age. So, from using this stencil, I started with encouragement of one of my friends, to try and make it more real life proportion and draw the figures myself (once again without any sort of drawing classes. The art classes at my school were a joke.) I bought sketchbooks and took them to school with me. I started writing because of this same friend.

It was frankly an escape. My allowance never grew bigger. So, it went towards buying new books to read, sketchbooks and replenishing my Crayola colored pencils. (Though Imperial ones were better but I only got those out of the colored pencil color by number kits.) I didn’t buy fashion magazines. The idea of fashion as a career wasn’t on my radar. I didn’t have a career on my radar. College was one of those, “I’ll think about it later,” things.

The girls at my school who were cheerleaders and liked fashion weren’t precisely my friends and felt like complete foreigners and strangers to me. I didn’t ‘get’ them. We had our groups and we stuck to them. Having arrived to this school after the groups were formed, I fit nowhere and living so far away from everyone else, there was no way that I could feasibly see to hang out with them after school in order to get to know them well enough to fit into one of the groups at all.

Magazines were a luxury in our house. Vogue never made it into the house ever. It took until after 7th grade and a major fight that we even got the newspaper. So by the time I hit eleventh and twelfth grade and college was ‘mandatory’ and I had a list of requirements for what college I could go to, I had to look through what the colleges offered versus what I was interested in and thought I could be good at. (Let me say that writing wasn’t considered because my mother was very anxious about me being able to have a ‘real job.’) And the practice test for the ACT in 10th grade came with this odd employment aptitude test thing to help you find the job that would be the right fit. (Goodness knows if it was remotely accurate.) Fashion design was in my “right fit” category. And between all the majors, there was a tiny college in Ohio that happened to have a Fashion Design degree under their Health and Human Services Major. And since the only computer graphics and gaming major I could find was at a Calvinist college in Michigan, I thought the Mennonite College in Ohio was probably a better idea.

I didn’t read fashion magazines. I didn’t know really how to sew. (Sewing lessons with my mother were a complete disaster.) I couldn’t make a pattern. I had absolutely no portfolio. There were three things I liked, writing, computer games and drawing clothes. And let’s be clear, I wasn’t that great at drawing clothes and my designs at the time probably weren’t that innovative. I had to make a choice and what very little information I could glean from the Ithaca Public Library (seriously, you’d think having Ithaca College and Cornell, the library would be better,) fashion seemed the way to go. It was a massive industry. It had to have work available after I attained my degree.

Oh to be that young and naïve again. Probably sheltered is the better term.

I was over a year and a half into my fashion degree at this tiny college when someone finally thought to clue me in that “to get a design degree you have to have an art minor.” Realizing that this was utterly ridiculous and that making patterns in ¼ of the size wasn’t really going to get me anywhere after trying to talk with one of the other students about whether or not we could really get work after going to this school, (I’m sorry, sweetie, I hope you realized I was trying to convince myself as well as you,) I transferred out and into the Academy of Art. (And this took another large fight.)

Where, I had a lot of credits but I essentially had to start from the beginning. So, having those credits wasn’t actually to my advantage because the numbers of credit hours earned made it appear that I had more experience than I did. This got me more scrutiny and really a worse college experience.

Let’s understand something, I grew up in New York. The Fashion Institute of Technology is part of the SUNY system of colleges. I was a New York resident. It would have been fairly cheap for me to go to FIT. My parents didn’t want me in NYC or at a secular school. Parsons was always out of the question because it’s as costly as Cornell and I understood that. FIT would have been an extremely LOGICAL CHOICE.

Oh well, I loved San Francisco. I loved the big city/small town feel of it and the ability to walk most places and the public transit. If it wasn’t so expensive to live there, I might still be there.

So, schooling wore away at me, but it didn’t dim my love of creating clothes. My love of creating clothes was never founded or predicated upon the idea that success was a runway show and a big fancy store and my name in lights. I didn’t want to be the next Coco Chanel. I didn’t know who she was and at the time I started drawing clothes, I frankly didn’t care. My going into fashion was me going “here is something I love and enjoy doing, can I make a job out of it? Yes. Yes. I can.”

No one can take that from me. I might get bored or tired, but you can’t take the love of creating away from me.

And by the way, I still don’t read Vogue. It’s out of date before it’s printed and 75% advertisements. I also still don’t care about a runway show or seeing my name in lights as a “name” of a brand. That’s not the fashion price point I do or understand. And that’s okay, despite the push by fashion schools to design for that price point and that should be your goal, there is a lot more to fashion than ready to wear. Maybe that gives me an advantage, maybe it doesn't. That's not my connection to fashion. Magical fabric shops, Barbie, Crayola, the joy of creating, those are my fashion connections. And those are a lot more tangible than a runway or a name in lights by my account.

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diabloindigo · 6 years

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Japan Travel Log (6/13-6/23/2018)

Tokyo Drift

We landed in Narita and met up with our guide Norio. I almost had to act as second-in-command since one of our kids was sent to a doctor. and our tour sponsor went with the ill student She had had a seizure in flight and the airlines arranged for a doctor to meet us at the airport. The kid was OK...the doctor said the seizure more than likely stemmed from the fact that she was menstruating, dehydrated, a lack of sleep, and staring at her phone and TV screen for a long time.

We were taken to Akihabara for shopping time before dinner. It’s a nerd’s paradise with shops selling anime merchandise, cosplay items, etc. This tour was more fast-paced than the 2015 excursion. I saw a lot of those little vending machines with plastic bubbles, but never got a chance to get one of the prizes. Last time it was a goose with yellow diarrhea. This year the theme was animals with Quagmire jaws.

We went to the Asakusa Kannon Temple and Meiji Shinto Shrine. Then there was a lecture from an ex-sumo wrestler that was quite interesting. I learned that some of those guys have 20% body fat despite their size.

Norio took us to a major shopping mall/arcade. I ended up by myself and was a bit anxious about getting lost. I found a Disney Store, bought some BH6 and Zootopia things before going into a noodle house and ordering bukkake noodles. I was more relaxed after lunch and found a Snoopy store but it was too late to really see much.

Later on, after touring the city some more (Tokyo City Hall) we ate a sumo supper:

The next day we went to a fisherman’s market and met up with some college students as part of an exchange program. Our sponsor presented the boys with Mexican candies. Only one of the students seemed to like the marzipan. Our student guide took us to Don Quijote for a brief shopping stint (I stocked up on plum kit-kat bars and Hachiko-themed fruit drops. My GoRuck pack was heavy toting ten cans of those candies. I was a little bummed about bypassing Hachiko’s statue, but it was packed with people who seemed amused that a cat was sleeping between the dog’s paws.

That Saturday was a bit brutal on our feet. With the heavy traffic, the guide had us travel by metro and foot. We ventured into Harajuku. I kept to the stationary stores and a t-shirt shop where the clerk was more than happy to assist me in buying a few shirts for gifts (and take my yen). I would have liked to have gone into Burberry but I’d have spent an arm and a leg in there. It was crowded, balls packed with tourists. Even getting drinks at a Seven-Eleven was crazy. All aisles were full of people. I’m also thankful for my teacher bladder because there was only stop at the public restroom from Harajuku to the history museum. By the evening, I stopped at a McDonald’s just to sit for a while and get off of my feet.

On Top of the World

We spent the night in Hakone.

This was from the Kamakura Shrine. A Japanese wedding procession even went by, reminding me of the Samurai Jack series finale.

Norio was full of surprises, one of them being a surprise mini-hike to Mt. Fuji.

That was fun. Granted I’m out of shape and couldn’t keep up with the group. I lingered near some sheds trying to get a selfie with the mountain behind me, urging the other students who stayed behind to start descending to the bus stop when it was time to leave. Stick to the edge of the trails. One, the center is for the gods and spirits only and two, there’s tiny fish aquarium-like granules in the center and more firm ground on the edge of the trail.

Then there was the hotel. I think this was my favorite day in the entire trip. Our guide was very considerate about letting participate in Japanese customs and culture. You read a lot of books, watch TV shows about Japan, etc., but the real reason to go on these tours...live it.

Norio gave us the rundown on the onsen. Our hotel overlooking the Pacific Ocean had a rooftop hot pool and he told us how to soak Japanese style (wear a yukata, and get in the water naked). I grabbed a yukata from the front desk and went to soak with Mel, an art teacher from Oregon. They arranged timetables so there would be an adults only time and a students only time. We got first soak before dinner. I’ve been to hot spring pools in Truth or Consequences, NM so the nudity thing didn’t weird me out much. Some of the NM pools have private pools where you either soak naked or with a swimsuit, and depending on my company, it can go wither way. But the public pools don’t allow nudity. So Mel and I soaked. Then I found a door leading outside and ventured out of the pool area finding a secret pool outside on the rooftop overlooking the Pacific Ocean. At that point, I felt like that guy from Titanic. It was invigorating standing up naked on the roof of a Japanese hotel, letting a light breeze graze over me as I watched the ocean.

That was dinner. The guide even procured sake for the adults.

Kyoto Stray

The next day we concluded our Hakone tour before boarding a Shinkansen to Kyoto. We didn’t know about the Kyoto earthquake until Norio received a call from the tour company asking if things were all right. I was a bit worried when Norio said our train was delayed due to the quake. I was already envisioning the group camping out in the station overnight waiting for a train. But our guide came through and got us on a late train, though most if us sat in the smoking car. Our guide was stressed out. He might not have shown it in his facial features or gestures, but I saw him sit with a guide from another group, both men drinking beers and lighting up as we rode out of Hakone. You do what you have to do, right?

On the second day, things weren’t going too well. I had dropped an ice cream cone seconds after buying it (and I wanted something cold and sweet). I couldn’t really meditate on the Path of Contemplation because I was wondering if I was going the right way.

The real kicker was getting separated from the group near dinnertime. We had stopped in a shopping arcade and I was not sure how to ask for a custom seal (stamp) in a shop so I dawdled a bit. The stamp would take twenty minutes to carve...plus I bought a weird stamp with a guy poking his head from underneath his ass for a co worker of mine, and a case for my own seal.

I met up with some students from our group and one girl was having trouble buying a shiba inu doll from an inu cafe storefront. I loaned her some money, but in that time, our group was leaving for dinner. I told our sponsor to wait so i could pick up my stamps, but when I left the shop, the group was gone. And I didn't have cell phone service so I couldn’t get texts on where to go.

I went to Starbucks for help, and the clerk pulled out a map suggesting that I go to the metro to get back to the hotel by Kyoto Tower. But I couldn't make heads or tails on which train to board or even how to buy a ticket for that matter. I walked along the underground for a couple of hours, studying the metro maps on the wall, but none had directions on getting to Kyoto Tower. I decided to return to the streets and get a cab. I felt like that guy from Shanghai Calling. (The part where Daniel Henney’s character hails a cab to his office and the cabbie tries to tell him it’s nearby, but at Henney’s persistence, ends up driving five feet away before showing him the office). With my luck, the hotel would be two minutes away.

It was a fifteen minute drive. I paid the cabbie thanking him profusely. I’ve never been stranded like that without cell service to use Apple or Google maps, and I was afraid of missing my ride to Hiroshima in the morning. I was already envisioning myself walking all over Kyoto until daybreak. The stress killed my appetite; I went into a Lawson’s store but ended up replacing my food on the shelves and returned to the hotel to soak for half an hour in the tub before crawling under the comforter. I didn’t want to leave the room. I was also dreading getting a tongue lashing from Norio about time management and keeping up with the tour. If he was upset, he didn't show it. I never got chewed out.

It’s late. I’ll continue with Hiroshima later.

#travel #rambles #Japan 2018

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micromanclub · 6 years

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1999 Interview with Iwakichi Ogawa, Creator of Microman

The following interview was translated from the fantastic 1999 Tokuma Shoten publication, Roman Album Hyper Mook 6: Henshin Cyborg and Microman Victory Project

President and Representative Director of Russell, Ltd. Iwakichi Ogawa

From here on [in this section of the book], we’ll introduce the inventors behind the history of creating the Takara original SF toys. Iwakichi Ogawa, having been involved in the development of Henshin Cyborg and production of Microman himself, is a living witness to the history of the Takara SF toys. His eyes shone like a young boy’s as he shared with us the behind the scenes story of these two major heroes.

--Ogawa-san, you handled making prototypes, right?

That’s right. I was originally in my college’s economics department, with a focus on marketing, and nothing to do with development work, one might say. But you know, I loved doing it and learning everything after joining Takara, so that by the time of Cyborg and Microman, I had begun to sculpt my own prototypes by hand.

--You only started creating models after you had joined Takara?

Precisely. I had a subordinate, a nice guy who had been in his university’s art club who I told, “teach me, too.” (laughs)

--That must have been nice, getting to paid to learn on the job. (laughs)

You mean playing every day from morning to night, and getting paid for it, right? (laughs) Oh, I played, all right. When establishing the (Japanese localized) rules for “The Game of Life”--adapting this thing which came from America--it couldn’t be anything but fun coming up with the “directions for each space”. If someone complained at the time, “oh, all you’re doing is goofing off,” I would answer, “no, this is work, you see,” but that was a lie. (laughs)

--Well then, please tell us about the time Henshin Cyborg was created.

As you are aware, the forerunner to Henshin Cyborg was Hasbro’s GI Joe, which began around the time I was on “The Game of Life”, so I was not directly responsible for that. “GI Joe will do well” was Takara president Yasuta Satou’s insight. So soon we were all on GI Joe. It was at a point when sales had declined a bit that I remember one fellow suggested, “let’s make a transparent one”. So the molding section at the factory followed up and produced one. Once it was assembled, the reaction was “hey, this looks pretty cool.” It had thick areas where the screws were inside it, right? From the side, it had a really amazing look to it. Though parts of the joints were made out of nylon, I could work with that.

The young guy responsible (he was around 24-25?) had incredibly good sense. Being transparent was just how it started, with it being plain and hollow, of course we needed to make the insides. But at the time, Takara was focused mostly on producing games and Licca-chan dolls, so there was no separate department yet for boys’ toys. Therefore, I wound up taking some kits of motorbikes that the model companies Tamiya and Arii were making at the time which had chrome-plated parts, and put those bits inside. So the first Cyborg we previewed at an industry trade show had a motorcycle engine for his innards.

At that time we stated the head was still under development, and just used a metal spring inside it. When the actual design was made, it was created by Dan Kobayashi (known since for creating Gaiking and Danguard Ace among others).　He did all the prototyping for the head and the finer detailing. Though the prototype was made in wax, I noticed quickly that it was green. Normally the wax is brown but when I asked him about it, he said, “sorry, that’s my secret.” It was a custom mix of waxes that was extraordinarily fine and easy to texture and tailor. I managed to get some and started using it in my own prototypes. Kobayashi-san worked with me on the prototypes for Microman as well. The prototypes for the Microman breastplates were made from a kind of plaster. Kobayashi used this plaster because silicon was expensive in those days.

Well, it’s actually called “rebase”, and it’s what dentists use to repair crowns in their work. It hardens quickly, making it easy to work with. Come to think of it, when we were doing Microman Command’s capsule later on, I forgot how it happened, but the mold wound up with a small “Ogawa” (小川) inside it, and I believe you can find it in there. (laughs)

--Well that’s… (laughs) I’ll check later when I get a chance (later on I confirmed that it can be seen molded into Command 3’s capsule). So, speaking of Microman, can you talk about how that began?

In fact, it started with GI Joe. GI Joe sold incredibly well at first, but eventually not so well, which was when my superior Wakase-san said “we should make these smaller.” He had worked in steel manufacturing, a very talented man. “You can’t produce vehicles when they are this big, so make them smaller,” was the advice of my boss from back then. We were still producing the original flesh-colored GI Joe at that time. Yet at that point it was totally undoable, with joints already smaller than you’d find on your own pinky finger. So, after trying anyway using insect mounting pins, I said “this isn’t viable (for production)”, to which Wakase-san answered, “ah, well”. Later, Cyborg became extremely popular. But both GI Joe and Cyborg were still too big to make vehicles for them to drive. So once again I confronted making the “miniature poseable figure” with the desire to make it possible at whatever cost. In any case, we needed to solve the joint problem, so I tried many different methods; using a beaded key chain to try making small ball and sockets, and other such ideas. But these would come apart after repeated use by a child. This was the biggest issue Microman would face. Then, with a portable folding ruler I found something—a tiny rivet, only 2mm wide. I began to hunt for it. It came from the shop making Licca-chan backpacks. I learned they had a machine that could install 2mm rivets automatically, so I checked, but while the rivets were 2mm in diameter, they were much too long. There’s no choice but to make the rivets shorter. After confirming it was possible, I asked Kobayashi-san for about 3 test sample bodies. With that, we assembled them with the fresh rivets, and the heads of the rivets looked quite cool. “This is good,” I thought as I could now put a request in with the boss which would only require a single mold casting. Nikkou Toys (a tin toy maker at the time) or such ought to be able to take the order. When I thought about the potential to use it with translucent parts, I was dumbstruck. Well, once I put these connections together in private, I actually cried. It had been over a year since I had first embarked on this project.

--That’s quite a while, isn’t it? How was it received in the end?

In those days of labor guilds, in spite that there were some who would think heavier was best, others felt “No, lightweight is good”. And with the oil shock of the following year, with the rise of the era of energy conservation, this was a potential selling point (laughs). And see, you could put a Microman on a matchbox, and now it’s a vehicle, right? Or an ashtray can be a flying saucer. When I showed it to sales, they too were, “Yeah, that’s good”. Then, for a company evaluation meeting, we took an electroplated frying pan and put a clock inside it so just the second hand axle was exposed and affixed a Microman to it. That way each time the hand ticked, the Microman would move. This had an incredible effect. “That’s it!” they said (laughs). Not much later this would become the counter display.

(Earliest known discernable photo of Microman prototypes being displayed, via Minoru Sashida.)

--For Microman, the play mechanics were quite novel, weren’t they?

Indeed they were. I put a lot of thought into how to make the series stand out as unique. This was “Episode 2” of Microman’s creation for me (laughs). At that time, Lego blocks were becoming the next big thing, and I had bought a set for my daughter, too. However, living in an apartment housing complex back then, things turned when neighboring children from the third and fourth grade came to play. “So, this is what I got.” “I wouldn’t buy that, it’s like a baby toy.” “But aren’t you playing with it too?” “Sure, it’s fun, but we’re elementary schoolers now.” I felt that they were the target. So the block was shaved down into the form of a wing. These days, blocks come in all forms, but back then they were only in the square form of bricks. And when we manufactured Jaguar, we used 3mm joints of ABS plastic for attachments. Blocks are fun, but for babies. So you have to make it in a form that is clearly not for babies. And if you make them into a science-fiction form, it begins to become interesting. (laughs) So while the figures were ready, the release schedule was repeatedly pushed back to “It will be available when it’s ready”. (laughs) Honestly, I already had something kind of like Robotman worked out by then. But nothing like vehicles yet, on the other hand. So for that I came up with the term “Material Block”. Since the 3mm pegs seemed to break easily, I figured, okay, let’s go with 5mm. From that point onward, Takara has used the 5mm gauge for all their product’s molds ever since. When we went on to create “Steel Jeeg”, we were able to incorporate the 5mm parts with magnets, too. So you could say that 5mm interchangeability started out as the basis for playing with Microman.

--That was profound, wasn’t it? It even became a hit abroad.

At first, when the president and department manager went to try to sell it in America, their efforts failed. Around then, a certain agent in California asked for “a percentage of the royalties if successful”. A half-year later, it became an explosive hit in Japan. When that happened, the company “Mego” was approached. When we showed them, they were interested and agreed. Then it became a huge hit there and his share turned into hundreds of millions. (laughs) When I visited his home after that, even though it was still back in the day, he had a giant projection TV, a home theater. A pool, too. Yet I was still some kind of salaryman. (laughs)

--Even though you’re the real father! (laughs)

The suspension that holds the hips would have broken were it not made from metal. I tooled it on a drill press and welded a hook onto it. It was fully my idea. (The book’s editor suggests comparing with a replica Microman figure release for reference here.) But I didn’t patent it. Back around the turn of the century, a similar design was filed to make wooden artist’s mannequins, so it wouldn’t have passed.

If the owner of that patent challenged us, even if they were wrong, it would have ended everything. But even today, GI Joe is using the same structure as Microman. Yet I was the one who designed it…

--By the way, how did it become called Microman?

It was originally codenamed internally as Microman --it was micro-sized, thus Microman—but it became the brand name in the end. The same for Acroyear which was “’akudoi yarou’ (‘vicious brute’), so we went with “Akuroiya”, or such (laughs).

--Was the story yours, too?

Yes. To sell them individually, we wanted to present them in a clear box. And, I started to think about how we could make the clear box itself a desirable feature. So I had read and researched a lot of science fiction by that point. I didn’t really agree with the theory of evolution. My own fancy was that living things could spontaneously change overnight. I hadn’t seen any fossils of transitional forms. So, I came up with the idea that the alpha H7 gas drifting in the galaxy would cause evolutionary change whenever it came into contact with life, and when MicroEarth exploded, it had a different effect by chance. Back then, there was the notion that Atlantis used crystal energy which I found interesting. Crystals that return the same frequency when exposed to electromagnetic waves. So the setting was created by combining these ideas. That’s what I recorded to a mini-cassette when it hit me in the middle of the night. (laughs) I contacted Design Mate, and gave it as the pitch. Suguwara from Design Mate (see page 80 [of this book]) then edited it and it turned out quite good. I spent a couple extra hours that night on the telephone. “Am I ever going home?” I thought (laughs). I’m sure I was annoying them too (laughs).

--I would imagine you always carried a Microman with you?

I always did. I made a ring for myself, you see. I placed the head of a Microman inside clear acrylic. I really wore it. However, as I gained weight, I had to shave out the center over time. (laughs) It was a lot of trouble to keep shaving down that acrylic.

--Still, it seems like you could put that on the market, now.

You think so? I guess I’ll take it to Takara and find out (laughs). But lately Microman has been getting a good reception from a lot of respectable folks these days, hasn’t it? However, I had gotten rid of most of mine. Such a waste, isn’t it? When it came about, I was “Ah, so that’s how it goes, huh?” (laughs) But, seeing the resurgence in popularity has been fun, you know? Seeing everyone joining in and putting them up on their home pages and such. Sometimes I wonder if I should drop in and introduce myself. (laughs) Ah, well…

--What kind of work are you doing next?

As a person who lived in the toy industry, you could say I wish to make a new “toy launch”. Without an anime launch, a toy that is a hit, becomes a game, then becomes an anime. Right now, I’m planning toward that goal. I’m about 60% there. This is a toy’s true essence! –is what I want to be able to express. That would be something like a new Microman for me. So now, I’m really fired up! (laughs) What’s it about? ….that’s a secret (laughs).

Iwakichi Ogawa, born August 24, 1942 in Fukushima Prefecture Former head of boy’s product development division at Takara. Current President and Representative Director of toy development company Russell, Ltd.

#microman #micronauts #pre-micronauts #pre-transformers #takara sf land #ミクロマン

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