Contemplations of a Closet Curmudgeon

The hysterical squeeing may have been audible in your time zone. My sister chose this off my Amazon wishlist and it arrived today.

http://www.amazon.com/Tsujigahana-Flower-Japanese-Textile-Arts/dp/0870117157/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325033714&sr=8-1

Obviously I have yet to read the whole thing, but it's full of glorious color plates of tsujigahana kosode, dobuku and textile fragments from the 15th through early 17th century, many I have never seen before. (That's saying something, given the number of Japanese textile books I've managed to amass over the years!)

There's a TON of tsujigahana garments in here that were owned and worn by and/or gifted to others by Tokugawa Ieyasu. You know, the Shogun. The real one. The author also thoughtfully included portraits and genre paintings of people wearing similar garments for comparison with the extant examples.

I'm looking forward to going through this in depth once I get my Twelfth Night chores done.

Speaking of which, it feels like the end is in sight on the false layers. I swear, it feels like four separate robes would've been easier than all this minging about with skinny strips of fabric that have to be hemmed individually and fitted together and stitched into a sandwich from the bottom of the eri (collar) all the way around the bottom hem and back up again. I made a good dent this weekend and should be able to finish this week.

Here I am, holding the fort and taking time out from mindless office housekeeping chores with my radio on louder than I ever play it at work because there's maybe five people in the whole building. The good news is that I get to bug out at 11 AM. Given that I fell asleep on the sofa two evenings in a row, I can use this afternoon to work on sewing.

Office gifts have included a bottle of a sparkling pinot noir/chardonnay blend (instead of the usual sake) and a bottle of Fire Engine Red (the label is great!) cabernet, a monolithic tin of Almond Roca (which is going to get put out at Twelfth Night), gift cards to a restaurant in San Leandro, another restaurant gift card I can use at Macaroni Grill or Chili's, a Starbucks gift card (I got a chai this morning, Peets is still better and the Beanery's better still), and a soy candle from one of the girls. Unfortunately, I hate vanilla scent, so I'll find a home for that. (I did candy and nice scented soaps for folks here.)

Purchased an ungodly amount of cheese at TJ's as I am spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with two different sets of friends. Will pick up fresh bread at Feel Good Bakery tomorrow, and maybe some fruit as well.

Found another Amazon package outside my door first thing this AM, it's got to be the shave ice grinder I ordered for Twelfth Night. I should probably do a test batch of matcha syrup and see what that's like, but the original plan was to flavor the ices with umeshu (plum wine). The Twelfth Night party menu I requested of layla_lilah was "stuff my guests can enjoy fearlessly." I recall the Japanese spread Anna Serre did for the Midsummer Feast a few years back and a number of people at my table gave several dishes the hairy eyeball (while I was squeeing "Oooh, QUAIL EGGS!!!"). Most non-Asians don't do crunchy dried fish bits or quail eggs and so forth, and a great many of the things we associate with familiar Japanese cuisine have been influenced by contact with the West or may even be relatively modern developments. We've got a good list of stuff worked out and it'll be fine.

One of the upsides of one's family finally getting a clue about Amazon wishlists is that one tends to get one's wishes granted: witness the book-alanche on my otherwise unenjoyable and barfalicious birthday. One of the downsides is that if one has been placing recent orders of one's own, one forgets not to rip the package open when it arrives instead of saving it to unwrap for Christmas - Especially if family member didn't spring for gift wrapping the contents of said package.

What this means is that I came home Friday night, found an envelope in the mailbox and had it halfway open on the way up the stairs before feeling the simultaneous oh joy-oh crap upon discovering said package contained Shogun on DVD from my sister and her family. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment was further enhanced by the tatty gift message. Given Amazon's huge profit base which is further enhanced by cheating on state sales tax and small-business-killing tactics, you'd think they could do better than carelessly ripping a printout down to 1/4 of an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet, crumpling it up in a ball and stuffing it in the package.  Tacky, Amazon, just tacky.

Got up relatively early-ish on Saturday, put together an apple pie for that evening's party and spent most of the day assembling my new karaginu. Given that there was bugger-all on cable to sew to, I decided to risk stabbing myself in the hand and popped the first disc of Shogun in.

Bear in mind, O My Readers, that I hadn't seen this since it aired in 1980, with the exception of the bit that Dafydd Netflixed on Thanksgiving (which was what made me put it on my wish list). A few years ago I reread the novel after reading Giles Milton's Samurai William and managed not to fling it across the room in disgust. There are things Clavell got wrong and things he got right and it holds up as a decent yarn loosely based on historical personages.

The score and editing movie, and you can't help noticing where the commercial breaks would've gone, but the production values are ichiban, the Japanese cast is rock solid and Richard Chamberlain does dashing hero very capably and does not get blown off the screen by Toshiro Mifune.  As I remembered from the novel, most of the Europeans (with the exceptions of Blackthorne and Rodrigues) are pretty one-dimensional. John Rhys-Davies is a blast as Rodrigues, BTW.  

Headed over to didjiman and karisu_sama's for their holiday party, which was fun, and I managed not to make too late a night of it.

Got in a couple more hours of sewing on Sunday morning, then went to callistotoni's birthday party/trunk show for acanthusleaf for a bit, then home for a light dinner and more stitching.

I have about half the collar of the karaginu to attach (which I plan on doing tonight) and it's done. It's frigging gorgeous and I'm really proud of it.

http://tousando.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=garb&thread=3921&page=1

I figured I'd post this since I'm not going to show you any pictures of the silk explosion at my house. Part of me is squeeing at the paint work on the new karaginu and wants to show off because it's so freaking pretty. However, a big part of me wants to keep it a surprise for Twelfth Night, especially after G thought it would be a brilliant idea (NOT!) to put up a kimono stand in an already crowded hotel room and display my outfit where people could spill drinks on it the night before.

1. Win#1: was able to legitimately blow off the annual office Christmas thing at the race track to dig out my desk on Thursday. It was dead quiet and I had a very productive afternoon which did not involve attempting to socialize or keep down steam table buffet lunch and cocktails.

2. Win#2: layla_lilah came over last night for a pre-Twelfth Night powwow about party refreshments. Dinner was take-out from Hong Kong City, followed by viewing "The Men Who Tread On The Tiger's Tale" and "Kuroneko" (the latter because she hadn't seen it before and I didn't mind watching it again. Ginger beef with scallions, mango chicken, spinach with garlic, rice and two char siu bao to save for breakfast this AM. My digestive system received it all gratefully and didn't complain.

3. Win#3: realized my genius idea of a reversible karaginu required more silk, so I bugged out early to Los Altos to discover that Thai Silks had a 25% off sale on all merchandise, including the jacquard I needed more of. The ladies at the store are really nice. I don't mind a field trip down there, particularly if they're having a sale.

4. Win#4: Gekkeikan Sake's old laurel wreath logo is really quite pretty. And on that note, I am going to switch laundry loads and see if I can cut a stencil using said logo, less the company name, of course.

EDIT 5. Win#5, Lumiere's "bright gold" looks awesome on the silk jacquard. Unfortunately, the natural light on a December afternoon is nowhere near as easy to work in as natural light in the summer and the high intensity lamp is, in some ways, making it harder to judge what I'm doing.....Break's over, back on my head.

Now, I have to tell you that art glass is generally Not My Thing. Pottery, yes. If I had more hours in my life, I'd even maybe like to learn it, but art glass, not so much. So when Randy Strong started shoving pipes into ovens at his studio this afternoon and announced, "Wanna see me make something ugly?" I asked permission to take pictures and shot a bunch of him working with his assistant Brendan Dreaper on an odd, art-glass take on a witch ball.









The whole set is at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/70104978@N00/sets/72157628284627189/with/6457415151/

Trees become shadows
Raising ragged arms as if
To haunt the still street.
Somewhere in the fog a train
Wails warning as it passes.

So, had a chat with Mom on the phone today - finally, as she'd gone home from Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's before they called me. And somehow we ended up talking about cooking and stoves and she asked me to take a picture of the Wedgewood. So I did, and sent it to her. (Then I sat down and cropped it a little and thought, "What the hell?" and posted it to lj_photophile.  I swear I do NOT get how they pick stuff for photo of the week anyway, so who knows if anyone will vote for this or not, but I kind of liked the composition. )

Anyway, I attempted to research the model on the internet and while I could find things that resemble it, I couldn't find an exact match. It probably dates from +/- 1950. Aside from the knob for the left rear burner being a bit sticky and hard to turn, it works beautifully and my reaction on seeing it when I first viewed the apartment is probably what convinced my landlord to give me a break on the rent.

Stitch and snip and stitch,
Each seam is victory,
Each hem is progress.
Like a climb up a mountain
The summit view is worth it.

Tzuzumi boshi*
Floats above my head, strangely
Silent for a drum.
The rattle of fallen leaves
Accompanies my footsteps.

(*The constellation Orion, which in the Japanese cosmology resembles a hand drum.)