Listen to the Rain

Laila is four years old! Happy birthday Laila!

This year, sashagee decided to have a smaller party this year, with just family. Unfortunately, almost no one could make it--her brother and my sister had to work and her parents were out of town on vacation, so it was just my parents that came. Laila didn't care at all, though, since she'd been talking for days about wanting to go spend time with papa and nana at their house and she was overjoyed at an entire day of attention from them. While I worked (at home, since my boss had offered that I could work from home on her birthday), Laila and papa and nana disappeared into Laila's room and read books, listened to stories on her Yoto (a gift from her grandma and grandpa), and drove cars around on her roadscape rug. When dinnertime came around we asked Laila what she wanted and she said tacos, so the entire family went on a short walk to sashagee's favorite local Mexican place, placed our orders, and walked back and ate. Shortly afterwards, papa and nana had to go home, leaving Laila with more Cars cars to drive around her rug, books, and some other presents.

Laila really loved her butterfly decor:


In more general updates, I already wrote about how we're worried about Laila's speech and we're going to get her evaluated, but she's been doing better in other areas. Today sashagee heard noise and woke up to find Laila had gotten up and gone to the bathroom all by herself! She doing better in swim class, and while she still has a bit of trouble with waiting her turn and with not messing with the floating toys the teachers use for helping to teach lessons, she understands that the appropriate thing to do in class is to "take turns." Or at least, that's what she tells me when I ask her, so she remembers it. Getting her to do it is another thing. On the other hand, she stuck her head underwater on the lesson after the one where the teacher told me that she had been asking to wear goggles, so that's progress! Only once, but I took Laila to a lesson where the parents spent the entire time trying to convince their son to get into the water and he simply would not do it. Laila has never had a problem like that.

We used to keep her door locked at night so she wouldn't get up and get in trouble, but since we're trying to teach her to go to the bathroom on her own, we've stopped. She used to bust out of her room just after we put her down for bed all the time, but she doesn't do that anymore. She's transitioning into a period where she actually wants to go to sleep. I don't expect this to last but I'll enjoy it while it does.

Lately she's been really into her Yoto, which is essentially a radio-esque toy. It has a daily short podcast or music on it at base, and then you can buy cards that kids can put in with various short stories or songs on them. Laila has been listening to a lot of the Little Mermaid. I was initially very skeptical of it because we have a rule about no flashing lights and no interactive buttons for Laila's toys, but I was won over by being told that there weren't videos to accompany the stories, it was just pixelated images and no more than one per chapter--so Little Mermaid only has three pictures (one of Ariel, one of King Triton, and one of Prince Eric). The music only has the image of a radio. We have been stopping her from skipping chapter after chapter, though, in the same way we don't keep reading if she skips ahead in her books anymore. Teaching patience is very important, even though Laila is definitely not happy about having to learn it.

She's turning into a fashionista as well. After five years, sashagee started wearing her earrings again and Laila immediately decided she wanted to wear them too, so we got her some shiny stickers that we use for "earrings." A couple weeks ago while we waiting for the bus, there was a woman wearing a bear of high-heeled gogo boots, and Laila physically put her hands on my cheeks, turned my head, and she, "She [I] like her boots!" Only four and she's very concerned with cuteness.

What other ways will she grow and change?

Final image: the cupcakes that sashagee baked for Laila's birthday.

( Butterflycakes )

How time flies.

The biggest news is that Laila is half potty trained! I say half because while she'll ask us to go to the potty, sit on the potty just fine and use it generally, she's a bit constipated because she's holding it in. I've read that this is pretty normal, that toddlers especially don't really understand and can feel like they're losing a part of their body. Laila doesn't seem scared--she didn't have any of the problems that show up sometimes like being scared of the toilet flushing or not wanting to sit because she's worried she'll fall in--she's just hesitant. She's always been an observer, someone who makes absolutely sure what's going to happen before she takes any action. It took her four months from standing up to walking, and after a couple months she put only the smallest amount of pressure on any surface she was holding on to. But it still took her a while afterwards until she would take a full step. I suspect this will be the same.

At her gymnastics class, sashagee ran into a nanny who said the kid she looked after was in that situation for a year! Hopefully it doesn't take Laila that long.

I've talked a lot about my worries about Laila's language development--speaking only, she understands us just fine--but she's been speaking a lot more. After she said "bread please" at dinner and I said, "Can you use a full sentence Laila please?" she said, "Can I have some bread please!" without any hesitation, so I gave her some bread. We can have more back and forth conversations now, and while she still only uses a few words at a time, we an have full exchanges of information. She'll say "Abba do" and hand me a pen, I'll ask, "What do you want me to draw Laila?" and she'll say, "Heart. All the hearts" and then I'll say, "I'll draw one, Laila, then you can draw another one, okay?" she'll say "mmhmm" and try to draw after I draw a heart. She'll follow along with multi-stage instructions. I can ask her what she wants for breakfast and get a reply. And sure, she's a kid and sometimes she'll say she wants eggs and do an excited dance in the kitchen when I start making eggs and then when I put the eggs down in front of her she refuses to eat them, but that's just being a kid. The important part is that she's starting to give us insight into her mind.

Speaking of her gymnastics class, she's still doing that and having a great time. As time as gone on, she's gotten more used to being in a situation where there's no family member around and a strange grown-up is telling her what to do. She's started doing somersaults herself around the house!

Since it's fall, sashagee has been dressing Laila in extremely fall clothing. This is probably the most obviously fall outfit she's been in, and one of the ones she likes the best because of the skirt:


She's slowly losing her baby face. Soon she'll be totally a little girl. This is why they say treasure every moment, because time only flows one way.

The one sad piece of news I have to report is that her seizures are more frequent now. She had a medicine change and it doesn't seem to be working, though part (most?) of it is also the potty training--apparently that's a seizure trigger in a majority of people. They don't know why, but it's definitely difficult for us to explain to her how important it is not to hold it in. She doesn't know she has epilepsy, she just "wakes up" confused sometimes to see abba and mama there holding her hand and being happy to see her. We have another appointment soon with the doctors to see if we can figure this out, and hopefully it's just a rough period at the moment. Until recently she didn't have a seizure for almost a year at home, only at the grandparents' house, and holding it in was the cause. If we can get past that, maybe we'll be in the clear.

What other ways will she grow and change?

sashagee's grandfather fought in the war and while stationed in Japan, met a woman and they got married. They later had a falling out and divorced and she returned to Japan, leaving her daughters behind. He remarried, to a woman ~15 years his junior, and that woman was sashagee's grandmother, but it means she has several half-Japanese aunts who are much older than her other aunts. I haven't met any of them, but one of them send us a present:



( More photos )

It took some coaxing to get her into it--the first time sashagee tried, she wanted nothing to do with it--but when she was told she could keep on her pink "pretty dress" and the yukata would go on over the top, she was all in. She's definitely in a girly girl phase.

Went out to the L this morning and the sign said it would be there in eight minutes, which was unusual--it would have meant I had just missed one and I hadn't seen one go by on the walk to the station. It ended up being more like twelve minutes, by which point the platform was very crowded, and then when the train arrived it was also very crowded. The driver apologized, saying that she had had a mechanical problem, and then we went on our way. And after only a few stops, we stopped again, and waited, and the driver came into the car I was in and messed with something while being on the phone with someone else, and then we were told that we all had to get off because the mechanical problem was too big to solve in just a few moments. So then I was standing on a platform with a hundred other people, and the train still wasn't moving, and after consulting my phone I dashed down the platform and down the street and got on the first 148 bus that came and arrived at work an hour late and more than halfway into the section meeting.

When the bus driver pulled up and saw fifty people waiting at the bus stop he was like "What the hell happened??"

A while ago I put on Facebook "Does anyone sell a dark green dress shirt in my size?" and melliott415 suggested Suit Supply and linked a dark green dress shirt. She also said that they do custom fitting, so yesterday I went into my appointment. It only took about ten minutes--the guy assigned to me brought in a slim-fit shirt and it was too big, so he brought in an extra slim-fit shirt and other than a bit of billow in the back it fit wonderfully. I picked out the green Egyptian cotton, and said I'd like it custom-made, paid for it, and went on my way. It'll be ready in three weeks.

New wardrobe alignment commenced.

I think it's time to change my personal style around.

The last time I did this was back in 2015, but I've done it several times in my life. To wit:

1. High school / University proto-goth (1997-2004): Mall goth. Black jeans/pants, black graphic tees. Occasional infusion of reds or dark blues, especially when I went to university (I used to have some red pants I'd wear on laundry day and greyselke hated them)
   
2. Post-university casual (2004-2008): Mild grunge. Much more color, though mostly blues, greys, browns, and greens. T-shirts with sarcastic sayings ("I'm only wearing black until they invent something darker") paired with cargo pants. Unstructured sandals during summer and boots during winter. Occasional flannel over top.
   
3. The Foreigner in the Inaka (2008-2011): Extreme business casual. Slacks/dress pants with untucked dress shirts above, in mostly black, white, dark blue, or pastels, though still greens and blues. Pants were black or blue.
   
4. Monochrome in the city (2011-2015): Gradual reduction of colors to black and dark grey, while still maintaining the business casual aesthetic. Introduction of sweaters (previously I'd relied on coats only during winter).
   
5. Dystopian Future Assassin (2015-2021): Full cyberpunk goth makeover. Substantial outlay on brand pieces (Demobaza, MDNT45, Zolnar, First Aid to the Injured, Tom Krom). Focus on asymmetrical clothing, layering, draping, and multiple textures per piece. Tons of compliments.

Dystopian Future Assassin has gotten me more style compliments than any other time in my life, but it has a lot of problems mixing with parenthood. It's very expensive, the clothes require some special effort to clean (most of them can be washed but are hang-dry only), and honestly, Laila probably isn't going to be too comfortable being held if I'm wearing a shirt with plastic webbing or too many zippers. So I thought, what would be an aesthetic that looks good, that I would like wearing, and that's easy to care for if a baby spits up or throws up on it?

Answer: Darkest academia.

That's kind of a joke, but it's true that sashagee has always said she's more in favor of Victorian goth style than cyberpunk style, and her favorite outfits of mine have always involved sweaters and cardigans. So focus more on that--slacks and dress pants, loafers or dress shoes, vests, dress shirts, sweaters, suit coats and cardigans, all in black, grey, dark brown, dark green, or wine red. I just said "Vests?" to and she replied "Y. E. S." so that's a good sign. And to top it all off, I can actual find these things in thrift shops and regular stores! I'll still be at the mercy of sizing, since it's nearly impossible to even find the most generic pants in my size, but the styling will be easier. There's certainly isn't any Demobaza available at my local thrift stores.

Honestly getting excited to update my wardrobe once again.

A while ago, I wrote about how I bought something at a shop called MDNT45 rather than buying the similar Demobaza version, and since then I bought a couple other things from them too. When my stimulus check came on, I sprung for a pair of pants from them, but first I emailed to ask about the measurements, since my inseam is 36 inches and it's almost impossible for me to find pants that fit. They emailed back that they could adjust the length for no charge, and the Small said it fit a 29-33 inch waist (mine is 30 inches), so I said that a Small was fine. The pants took a while to get to me, but there's coronavirus-related shipping delays everywhere, so that's okay. But when they arrived...well:

( I am, you might say, stretched )

I could pull them completely off without unbuttoning them. I'm very thin, but I'm not that very thin. When I emailed to ask, MDNT45 said that it was too bad, since if I had told them I wanted the waist a smaller size they could have adjusted that too. It was a bit dismissive, and I didn't want to argue, so I took the pants down the street to a tailor and paid $13 to have them altered.

Several people asked me why I didn't raise more of a fuss about it, which is a good question. There are a couple reasons: the first is that while I still kind of doubt that's a 33-inch waist in the picture, I don't have any proof because I didn't measure it before I took it to the tailor. The second is that while I was annoyed at MDNT45's response, English isn't their first language and it's possible they meant it in a sympathetic way--that they could have made another alteration if I had asked. And since they already didn't charge me to have the pants lengthened, I thought they had earned at least a bit of forbearance. And when I got the pants back from the tailor, they fit perfectly, so that's that. I paid $200 for the pants, but it was worth those $13 to not have to have a drawn-out argument, especially when I didn't know whether I was right or not. It's really important to me to have a basis for my own complaints.

Now I have another pair of pants, and since I don't have to go back into the office for the rest of the year, I'll get more wear out of them. Full cyberpunk elf aesthetic is a go!

I'm back online now, but at 8:30 a.m. the power went out, and it came back and everything was fine for about ten minutes, and then the internet went out for two-and-a-half hours. I got on the line to the ISP, and they said it was a hub outage and all I could do was wait, so that's what I did. It's not even noon and all my chores for today are already done--I vacuumed and mopped the whole house, I did my laundry, and I cleaned the kitchen. Lunch is waiting for me when I'm ready for it, and now my entire evening is open because everything I had to do then, I've already done. It feels amazing, honestly. I hope that I learn from this and realize that sometimes it's better to accomplish pressing tasks earlier rather than putting them off until later while I play video games or whatever, and by writing down how I feel about it now, I'm doing a bit to bring forth that change in myself.

Will it actually happen? Who knows. But I'll try.

After I finally get onto the work network, there was a message saying that the current work-from-home order is being extended until the end of May. That's fine with me, since I've gotten used to my extremely short commute--and thanks to writing this, I remembered to go cancel my commuter pass for June. I've got two passes saved up that I haven't used, and I have $98 in Ventra credit because apparently Ventra refunded almost my entire March pass instead of just the unused portion, so I'm set for months of riding the L once I actually start doing it again. That'll save me hundreds of dollars, so I won't complain, but I do worry a bit about the health of the L what with all the lost ridership. Just another financial aspect we'll need to worry about as we try to sort through the fallout of the coronavirus.

On Sunday, I had my first class with my Japanese tutor in a month. Over FaceTime, obviously, and I did a bunch of reading in 世界の中心で愛を叫ぶ / Socrates in Love, and then since it had been so long since we met, we just talked the whole time (but in Japanese!). We talked a lot about coronavirus, obviously, and I had to look up some vocab and talk a bit circuitously to explain that current infection rates reflect public behavior as of two weeks ago due to the incubation period, and that while the number of cases in Illinois was still climbing, it wasn't climbing as fast--that the rate of increase (増加率 zōkaritsu) was lowering, but not the absolute numbers. We talked about how we're both lucky to be able to work from home, and how we have a lot of friends who are out of work, and how I've reverted back to the me in the past. A few months ago, I was going out all the time, maybe five nights a week, and had almost stopped playing video games. Now, I'm back to watching anime, playing video games, and reading, with the very occasional video chat or in-person seeing of someone else. At least I have a solid foundation I can fall back on, but it's still not great. She's an introvert and lives with her boyfriend, so she's doing pretty well, but living alone is pretty lonely.

Speaking of which, thosesocks invited me out on a walk on Saturday, when the weather turned back to warm, so after lunch I left my home for the first time in a couple days and met her outside. She walked on the sidewalk and I walked on the street, close enough to have a conversation but far enough (and both masked) to keep each other safe. We went to Lickity Split for frozen custard and ate it sitting in the library parking lot while we talked about how we're dealing with things. The answer is "mostly well, but", and I feel like that's a pretty universal experience. I should see if anyone else would like to do something similar.

With my government stimulus money, I ordered a bunch of clothes I've been eyeing for a while. It's always difficult for me to buy clothes, becusae I'm 6'5" and very thin, so anything with the right waist size has legs that are too short, and similar for shirts with sleeves. But I asked the people at MDNT45--the ones behind this post about the cloak-coat I own--about whether they could make these pants with a small waist but a much longer inseam, and they said they'd do it for no extra cost! So I ordered that, I ordered some fitted dress pants and fitted t-shirts from Amazon, and all of them actually fit! I was especially surprised by the pants, since slim-fit 31/36 pants (in inches, waist/inseam American sizing) had the potential to fit terribly, but they were exactly what I was looking for, so I immediately ordered another pair. It's so rare that I find store-bought pants that fit well that I have to seize the chance as soon as I can.

The t-shirts had prominent logos on them, so I took a seam-ripper to them and removed them. Like Cayce Pollard, I am sensitive to #Brands.

That was about the extent of my stimulus usage. I dumped a bunch of it into savings, since I have a mortgage to pay, and invested some of it since the market is down and now is the time, or at least a more advantageous time than a couple months ago. I also ordered takeout after Passover ended, since I wanted to eat bread to celebrate but obviously didn't have any in the house. Tomato bisque and a grilled cheese sandwich, with dark chocolate chip cookies for desert. Delicious.

Alright, now that I can work, I probably should get back to it. I hope everyone had a good weekend!

I tend to treat rings like they're D&D equipment slots, where I can wear one on each hand but any more causes them to lose their powers. For years I wore my wedding ring on my left hand and a ring with the first line of the Shema on my right hand, but obvious I don't wear my wedding ring anymore and the Shema ring's text has faded so much it's completely illegible and not even obvious that there's text there at all. And I had also bought it with one for schoolpsychnerd to wear too. So while I did like that my Shema ring spun and I could fiddle with it, it was time for new rings:

( Rings )

Now I just have to get used to wearing a ring on my left hand again, and what's more, on a different finger. I always used to wear two rings basically right up until I got married, so this is another way of going back to my traditional practice. Another milestone.

I've been thinking lately about trying to spin my usually goth/cyberpunk aesthetic in a more Jewish direction and wondering what exactly that entails. Just yesterday I ordered this necklace, and I thought, what else would fall under "Jewish goth"? Traditional goth stylings are about transgression, but usually with a very Christian or pagan spin--funeral veils, upside-down crosses or pentagrams, Norse runes, etc. How to do that with Jewish iconography?

So here's some thoughts:

• Ravens: Ravens are treif, obviously, but there's more than that. Noah sent out a raven first when the waters were receding, and then was forced to send out a dove when the raven never returned (Genesis 8:7). Midrash states that this was because the raven spent the whole time eating the corpses of the dead, which, metal. 🤘🏻 The ravens also brought food and drink to Elijah in the wilderness (1 Kings 17:6), indicating they are companions of the outcast, the voices in the wilderness.


• Fringed Shawls: I'm thinking black, or black and white, or black and dark blue, with a fringe on the end to evoke the tallit.


• Torn Clothing: In addition to the association with decay, this is explicitly funereal in Judaism. It's traditional to rend your clothing (קריעה keriah) on hearing of a death, dating back to Tanakh (Genesis 37:34, II Samuel 1:11), so wearing torn clothing all the time would indicate that death is always on your mind.


• The Moon: Night, obviously, but the sages also wrote that the moon and sun were originally of equal stature and size, but the moon complained to G-d about not being given a pre-eminent place. For her hubris, she was demoted to the lesser of the two, but provided with the stars as a slight compensation (Chullin 60b). Again, outcast, associated with night. There's some traditions that associate the moon with sin and redemption as well--it waxes and wanes just as people commit transgressions and then atone.


• Owls: Owls are associated with Lilith, visible in Isaiah 34:14 where the word variously translated as "night creature," "night bird," or "screech owl" is לילית lilit, "Lilith." The name Lilith itself is cognate with the word לילה laylah, "Night." Lilith has a lot of transgressive associations--she was Adam's first wife but refused to submit to him, she flies through the night attacking children in vengeance for G-d's slaying of her own children, and chose exile and the power of night over a diminished place in the hierarchy.


• Biblical Quotes: A lot of quotes from Tanakh are extremely goth. Take Isaiah 64:6:

  All of us have become like one who is unclean,
  and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
  we all shrivel up like a leaf,
  and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

  I'd definitely get that in Hebrew on a shawl or clothing somewhere. Pick something appropriate about mourning (Psalm 137), blood (Deuteronomy 12:23), vengeance (Jeremiah 46:10), bitterness and sorrow (Job 10), desolation (Lamentations 1), or death (Ecclesiastes 8:8) and go to town.


• Candles: I mean, we light candles at sundown, drink wine, and eat bread and salt every Friday. That's already pretty goth--it's not really much of a stretch.


• The Evil Eye: The hamsa is a common Middle Eastern symbol to ward off the Evil Eye, and you can still find older people who say kein ayin hara after complimenting someone in order to prevent the Evil Eye from falling on the focus of their compliments. I'm envisioning something like a Nazar amulet, but cracked, or with a red eye instead of blue, or one that's crying.
  
  I should say that I honestly wouldn't be comfortable doing this one , but it certainly fits. I'd be more likely to wear a hamsa straight, which evokes the kind of spooky supernatural aesthetic a lot of goths like (at least in America--they're everyday items in Israel) without explicitly inviting bad luck on yourself. I've thought about getting gloves with hamsas on the back. Someday.


• The Seal of Solomon: By this I mean the six-pointed star versions, not the later versions by Christian writers. The main distinguishing point from the Magen David is that the Seal of Solomon has interlaced triangles (in order to confuse demons), whereas the Magen David has overlapping triangles--at least in the past, though that distinction isn't really followed anymore. Even a Magen David can work if it's a little different--I have one that's done in Celtic-style interwoven knotwork, and I found this design modeled after bones with a bit of searching.


• Layers: I'm thinking here of reinterpreted tzniut, the way there's a lot of Victorian fashion among goths. Something like dark mori would work for women--no one could say that someone wearing a long skirt, stockings, boots, a blouse, a cardigan, a shawl, and gloves was dressed immodestly. For men it's a little harder, but still possible.


• Serpents: The serpent of Genesis 3 is the obvious inspiration here. It specifically says that the serpent is more crafty than any other creature, but there's no real motivation for its discussion with Eve given. Or is there? Genesis 2 says that after G-d said Adam needed a companion that the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky were brought to him, and only when none of them were found suitable did G-d make Eve. So the serpent was jealous--and possibly, according to the sages, asking a question: "What makes you so different from us, that none of us were suitable as a companion for you? Are you so far above us? What is the line between us that neither of us can cross?"
  
  Plus, the serpent was right. Eve says that if she eats the fruit she will die, and the serpent says that no, her eyes will open and she'll gain wisdom. Secret wisdom, forbidden truths, knowledge that other people shy away from--those are goth. (suggested by gothiklezmer)

More as I think of them.

I do a bunch of this already. I ordered that raven skull necklace, I have a knotwork Magen David, I have a black scarf with ragged edges that's tallit-sized, and I layer clothing all the time. And speaking of torn clothing, some of my clothing has rents incorporated into the designs, so that I've worn four layers and still had skin that wasn't my hands or face exposed to the cold. I have a ring with the first part of the Shema on it. But just in writing this down, I've already thought of a few more ideas. 🖤

Final note: I flopped back and forth between and for the icon, but eventually I had to go with the Yahrzeit candle.

One of my favorite designers is Demobaza, ever since I redid my entire wardrobe back in 2015 and googled "cyberpunk clothing" not knowing what I would find. I found a lot of very expensive techwear that I wasn't interested in because who wants to go outside, some cybergoth stuff that wasn't really my thing because I didn't want to invest in a gas mask, Zolnar (from whom I bought a sweater), and Demobaza. There was a thread somewhere of people discussing it and someone saying, "Who wants to go out looking like a Metal Gear Solid villain?", I immediately answered "me" and went to their website, and it's been compliments on my fashion ever since. Just yesterday when I was shopping at Whole Foods, the woman checking me out told me that she always thought I "layered very well." I'm glad she noticed.

That said, all of my Demobaza pieces are from earlier collections like FW13 or SS15. After that, they moved in a direction I can only describe as "Fremen couture."


But what I'm writing about actually isn't Demobaza, it's about saving money by not buying Demobaza.

( A tale of thrift )

This is the first con I've ever gone to alone.

I mean, I'm not really alone. I was considering not going at all, but ACEN is the one time a year that I see a big chunk of my friends. Skipping it would mean not seeing them, and I think that's a pretty high price to pay. So I stuck with it, didn't cancel the hotel room, packed everything up, wrote down all the events I wanted to see, took the day off, and otherwise made all the preparations.

( Friday )

( Saturday )

( Sunday )

So ends ACEN 2018.

I just realized that this is the tenth ACEN I've been to. 05, 06, 07, 08, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, and this year. From 2009 to 2011 I was in Japan, and in 2013 we didn't have the money. Those gaps are why I didn't realize it previously.

People kept asking me if I had a good time, and I really did. It was enough to convince me that whatever, happens, I should come back next year. ACEN is the one time a year that I see some of my friends, which has value that's definitely worth more than the cost of going. And even if I don't watch that much anime anymore and have no idea what series most of the people cosplaying were from, there's still plenty for me to see and do. I was telling klenkers that there are whole sections of the con I don't go to, and that I could spend the weekend in the board games and tabletop section and have a fantastic time. I haven't gone to a con masquerade in a decade now, or to any of the dances in almost as long.

And I'm glad I could get the full con experience of staying up late and waking up early. Even at 35, I haven't lost my edge when it counts!

See you next year, ACEN.
​

Note the "of the" in the title.

Yesterday after Japanese lessons, I scarfed down a Panera sandwich and then walked over to the Japanese Consulate in Chicago for the opening of the Last of the Samurai photographic exhibition, held in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Meiji Restoration. The opening event had a few extras arranged by the consulate, so while I initially figured I'd just go after work some day, I thought since I was already downtown, why not?


The photographs depict the 1860 Japanese Embassy to the United States, sent by the shogunate shortly after the Black Ships arrived in Japan, and the 1873 Iwakura Mission sent by the new Meiji government. That particular picture is from the Iwakura mission and the central figure is Iwakura Tomomi (岩倉具視) himself, after whom the embassy was named.

He also had his topknot cut while he was in Chicago, finally breaking with the court-nobility-dictated style of his ancestors.

After some brief remarks by Miro Ito, co-organizer of the project and whose great-great-grandfather Nakahara Naosuke had worked on the Iwakura Mission's ships, and an introduction by Consul-General Naoki Ito (no relation), who was wearing a Cubs pin despite his expressed policy of usually maintaining official neutrality in the Cubs/White Sox war, we got to the good part. There was a brief lecture by a Professor Thomas Gaubatz of Northwestern University, who talked about clothing styles. After some background that I already knew, about the kamishimo court formalwear and the less-formal hakama and haori ensemble as well as the Tokugawa sumptuary laws, Professor Gaubatz moved on to talking about the changes that occurred in fashion due to the Meiji Restoration. Japanese society settled on Western-style formalwear as the default business and political garb relatively quickly, spurred by the Meiji Emperor's decision to wear a Prussian-style military uniform rather than traditional court clothing, but for a few years it was a riot of experimentation. There were several pictures from a book titled 浮雲 (ukigumo, "The Drifting Cloud") that showed students wearing kimono along with a stylish bowler's hat, and one that showed the central character in a suit with frock coat sitting seiza at his writing desk. The professor also described pictures he had seen of men in kimono over a collared shirt and cravat, wearing leather shoes, which sounds like something I've seen in a tokyofashion post. I kind of wish that experimentation had won out over wholesale adoption of Western fashion except in very particular circumstances.

After all the speeches was a dance performance by Shunso, a ballet performer with the National Ballet of the Czech Republic and a third-dan Iaidō practitioner. I admittedly haven't seen much ballet, but it felt more like the latter than the former, all economy of motion, slow and deliberate gestures, and occasional explosions of force when drawing and swinging the sword, accompanied by a soundtrack of bells, flute, and natural sounds like rain, the crackling of fire, and stones rubbing against each other. I didn't take any pictures because I'm not a philistine, but I kind of wish I had. It was beautiful. The only problem was that I was seated behind the podium and kept having to shift around to see what was happening.

The evening ended with sushi and drinks, and I grabbed a plate of sushi and ate it before leaving. I didn't know anyone else at the event--a lot of people there sounded like they came to many of the Japan Information Center's events, or were students or colleagues of Professor Gaubatz--so I didn't have anyone to talk to, but the nice thing about a lecture and performance is that you're not supposed to talk during it.

I'll definitely be going to future JIC events. Maybe I'll find someone to talk to.

Relevant title since it's 海の日 (umi no hi, "Marine Day") in Japan.

My shirt came in the mail! Even after I got an alert that it had been delivered, and then checked to find that it hadn't been delivered, but then it turned out that it was delivered.

Click below to hack the Gibson.
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Otherwise, spent the day playing Stardew Valley and Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. I forgot how terrible the interface on the original Warcraft was. No hotkeyed groups, only able to select four units as a time, no contextual mouse clicks...it's a DOS game. Despite that, I'm having some fun with it. I'm over halfway done already, and should have a review up tomorrow night or Wednesday morning.

We finished watching 少女革命ウテナ ("Revolutionary Girl Utena") with xoDrVenture last night. It's much more optimistic on a second viewing, I think. And much more obviously about growing up, and how some people never do. We'll probably watch something light and fluffy next. We already watched Wakakozake afterward, now that xoDrVenture has been to Japan with us and knows why schoolpsychnerd and I don't go to Japanese food in America very often.

We tried to order takeout 唐揚げ afterward. There were no restaurants that delivered it. The only restaurants still open were the Thai-food-and-sushi ones that are so common in Chicago and completely absent everywhere else.

This is the first day of my vacation, but it feels like I have to go back to work at any moment. Maybe after Japanese class tomorrow, I'll be able to relax a bit more. I can hope.

But right now, people are almost here for Warlords of the Mushroom Kingdom!