Good idea or bad?

Random ideas often come to me while I'm standing over the copier and this may have to do with the fact that I was in a Barnes and Noble recently and didn't see a journal I quite liked to use as my Twelfth Night guestbook.....  Or not.

Anyway, ema are votive offerings (or wishes, if you like) made at Shinto shrines, while part of the Tanabata festival involves writing wishes and hanging them on trees. In fact, Yoko Ono adapted the idea to a Wish Tree in the garden of the Hirschorn Museum in DC. Here it is naked.  I shot this last month.

So should I have a tree for people to put guestbook notes on at my UnVigil?

Are you ready for the November Tanka Challenge

It's getting to be that time!

Here's the concept:
Write one tanka (waka)* a day for the month of November.

*Resources on tanka:
http://www.ahapoetry.com/TANKA.HTM
http://www.americantanka.com/
http://www.wodefordhall.com/heianpoetryjam.htm

The
spirit of this poetic form being the impermanence of this dewdrop life,
no other make-ups are permitted. If you miss a day, you miss a day and
as in real life, you never get it back. (You're on the honor system here....)

No limits on subject matter other than any you chose to impose upon yourself. Hopefully, some moment in your day will inspire you to write about it.

If you write more than one tanka a day, fine. However, you may not carry over tanka to other days. You have to write a poem on each day.

(If you are inspired to "answer" someone else's poem, great. Personally, if I do so, I am not going to
count it toward my daily assignment. The idea is to come up with something myself each day. What you do is up to you.)

Adherence to the 5-7-5-7-7 line/syllable count is required, otherwise it's not a tanka.

It's poetry, not stereo instructions. It should say something and it should make sense.

No rewrites. (I know, I'm evil, but it's part of the process of practicing this form. At least for me.)

If you want to share your poems, you may post them to the Tanka Challenge community at http://community.livejournal.com/tankachallenge/profile

This challenge originally premiered in 2008.

Good luck everyone!

Anybody out there ever used this stuff?

Jacquard No Flow resist. http://www.dharmatrading.com/html/eng/1901-AA.shtml?lnav=resists.html

If it works as advertised, I could conceivably use it to reserve the roundels on that silk jacquard in white while dyeing the rest of it, which would be awesome. Just fired off a note to Dharma Trading's customer service link to see what they recommend.

EDIT: and it's not worth the risk, leaving the whole thing white or dyeing it a pale pink overall would not be the worst thing in the world, given the color scheme of the rest of the kasane. May run over to Dharma tomorrow for a consultation. Besides, I'm all out of Lumiere paint anyway.

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To wig or not to wig. My old wig is old and it's a Halloween POS. My real hair is about 3' too short and I'd have to dye it even darker than it is....   With the popularity of cosplay, there are some decent looking long wigs out there. (sarcasm_hime, can you comment or recommend?) However, wigs are by nature heat traps, I will already be wearing a lot of clothing and the ceremony calls for the placement of a medallion and a cloak on me......

(Ooh, note to self, do not forget to order tooth black!)

***************
I'm liking the wish-tree idea the more I think about it. Bamboo is traditional for Tanabata, however, it will be January and the UnVigil theme is a moon viewing on a snowy evening. Fill the pottery vase I bought with pebbles, anchor some winter-bare branches in it and hope no one loses an eye. 'Cause it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

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Dear la_peregrina,
I know you want to come, but real life comes first! I will be much happier knowing you're taking care of yourself and have your priorities straight if you cannot - and so would Gaius and so would Wilhelm. Surely SOMEONE will get photos of all this nonsense in any event, quite possibly even bovil and moriven, who I actually trust to do it well. So there, nyah.