Thoughts before lunch

1. January 24, 2009, Barack Hussein Obama is sworn in as President of the United States.
March 5, 2009, there is $10 more in my paycheck this week than in any previous paycheck for the year 2009.
That's what I call fast work.

2. There have been a number of "Ooh, shiny!" responses to my post of yesterday regarding the kaga chochin project. There has not been a single, "Did the Japanese use that particular weaving pattern in their basketry and would it have been used for a kaga chochin?" question.

Honestly? Before God and all the neighbors? I couldn't tell you. I do know that the basic hexagonal basket weave mimicked by the other cane I intended to use is one of the weaves used for baskets in a number of cultures, Japan included. The star variant I'd never seen before and I let my own "Ooh, shiny!" impulse allow me to buy $12 worth of it.

Before God and all the neighbors, this is going have to be one of those "plausibly period" projects. I have yet to find extant kaga-chochin because they probably didn't survive. I have yet to find iconographic support because I haven't found (or at least do not recall seeing) any night time scenes in any of the narrative picture scrolls from pre-1600 with paper or basket-lanterns in them. All I have is the oft-repeated blurb that paper lanterns evolved from the practice of using baskets as lanterns.

EDIT (added well after lunch): If you remember the PingMag article I posted the link to, it includes a photo of a kaga-chochin, consisting of a tall openwork basket with some paper glued to one side of it. I have absolutely no way of knowing how old it is or whether it's at all historically authentic.

It's not implausible.  The design idea I have in mind, assuming I can pull it all together and make it work, will at least be a functional, attractive and non-modern camp accessory.

Early 19th c. Lanterns by Ukiyo-E master Hokusai Katsushika

Fine, they're COMPLETELY out of period for the SCA, but they are gorgeous and I was thrilled to find images of them in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts' collection. They also are unlikely survivors of time, being, well, paper lanterns, (particularly given the rather shabby state of the ones I bought at Cost Plus less than two years ago). Two hundred years old, I first saw these at the Drama and Desire exhibit of Edo period paintings at the Asian Art Museum.
http://www.mfa.org/collections/search_art.asp?recview=true&id=204025 and http://www.mfa.org/collections/search_art.asp?recview=true&id=203969



According to this article from the Japan Times, these paintings came to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1911, having been removed from their original lantern frames and pasted onto scroll papers. Extensive restoration returned them to the shape they were originally intended to be seen in.  One can only imagine what these must have looked like when lit from within!
(Also of note, the wonderful painted banner shown in the article of Zhong Qui, the famous Chinese queller of demons who bears a distinct resemblance to a certain Bushi from the Outlands.)

The random never stops

Is it wrong that I looked at this and it gave me an idea for - a party dress?  Especially since I don't even watch things like Project Runway?

A friend at work pointed me at this Craigslist ad for a vintage clothing sale Saturday here in Alameda. The name rang a bell: Retro Diva used to sell out of an antique shop over on Park Street and is now selling through Icon Vintage in Berkeley.

Anybody want to go all Master and Commander with me? momstable  did one of the battle sails last month and I just found the bookmark again and they're doing sails out of Oakland this month. I realize this weekend would be short notice, though the weather looks promising. Sunday? Or maybe next Sunday? Additional Bay area sails run through the beginning of April. (For the fannish, the Lady Washington was used for the Napoleonic holodeck sequence in Star Trek: Generations and has done duty in the Pirates of the Carribean films.)