The Japanese blog, rasberyfarm featured the castle of the Lord of Mask, Mr. Okada. The Honorable Lord’s present mental state has allowed Him to make about 20,000 masks for display on his royal castle as you can see here on the right and the other photos, ha, ha.
His Lord runs an art school for masks every weekend at his castle in Nasu, Japan. As the blog explains in Japanese, the students like Her Lady of Mask pictured above, “inhale Mask Power from a world of a different dimension.”
His Lord runs Saturday classes for free, and for travel, “guidance to the ‘God-of-super-good-place-known-to-few-people’ spot” inquire at the nearby lodging/pension, Raspberry Farm in Nasu-gun, Tochigi Prefecture in northern Japan.
Ain’t That a… Shamisen? WFMU’s Beware of the Blog: February 13, 2008 (MP3s)…In not-so-ancient Japan, the inferior status of women and the disabled…you can only imagine the island nation’s treatment of its unsighted females. Cast out by a disdainful society, these doubly afflicted souls nevertheless crafted for themselves a new identity as wandering musicians, spreading news and social commentary while eking out a threadbare existence of alms……Known as goze, blind women shamisen players have been traveling and performing a circuit of remote villages dating back to the early 17th century…
With their shamisen, fretless 3-string banjos, blind female singer/story-tellers would wander old Japan in small troops of two or three with a partially sighted leader. Singing the blues was the only way they could feed themselves if their family couldn’t. Listen to and download the goze girls’ MP3s that public radio station, WFMU, has posted.
Speaking from the heart –Flowers once used to convey particular virtue, message or thought – Deseret Morning News | Monday, Feb. 11, 2008…
…This language of flowers, in which flowers and floral arrangements were used to send particular messages…. Floriography, as it is called, was also practiced in Japan, where it is known as “hanakotoba.” ….
…Of course, you can never go wrong with red roses [which represent true love] …Secret admirers might want to consider peonies —they stand for bashfulness and will let your valentine know you will reveal yourself in time…more….
As you see in the above scan of the cover of the manga named “Hanakotoba”, the heroine is wielding a lily. The word yuri , literally meaning “lily”, is a relatively common female name: However, here it refers to term “yuri-zoku” (”lily tribe”) aka lesbians. Actually yuri-zoku was derived from the “flower-language” term Bara-zoku (”rose tribe”), which was first used for the name of a Japanese magazine for gay men of the 1970s and later was Bara-zoku generalized to gay males.
Read more on hanakotoba“flower-language” on Wikipedia.
Yesterday I reported on GUNDAM, 28 Years After so I thought I would also mention the Gundam-esque “The Four Cutie Fighters“ exhibition of photographs by the “LAYER Project” that was held at Tokyo’s ritzy Aoyama Gallery.
A rough translation of the artists’ Introduction webpage shows the purpose of this project was to create, “an expression of new eroticism as a refined art.”
The artist, Hiroyuki Hayashida, writes that he is, “groping for a new eroticism that is sensitive to the changes to Japanese society.” His LAYER Project’s theme in this exhibition is “transformation,” a process in which, “four female high school students disguise themselves as a squadron of heroines.”
Ri-i-ight, whatever.
This Japaneseque video is what YouTube was made for!
Marvel in wonder at this frolicking Japanese man wearing a horse mask and a slingshot mankini as he brews up a batch of Amanita muscaria aka Sacred Soma magic mushrooms. –2008/Jan/28
Since its Mardi Gras right now, why not enjoy some Japanese masks?
Every Japanese matsuri/street fair has rows of plastic toy masks for sale like these.
Besides traditional Japanese characters like the oni/devil, most of these masks feature commercial characters like Hello Kitty and Pikachu to delight kids at street fairs.
With the Japanimation boom throughout the world, these masks and Japanese faux-festivals have spread in popularity. However, this resulted in some funny reinterpretations and knock-off masks of Japanese characters in foreign markets. The Japanese blog, INTER News, recently ran a headline, “Astonished! Evangelion’s faces abroad are very popular!” about markets in Thailand selling these bizarre Evangelion masks. INTER News writes, “Although I want a Japanimation boom to continue from now on, I want blue-haired Rei Ayanami to stop with the gapping ‘O’ mouth.”
Sake lovers can drink like a fish from dried squid cups Mainichi Daily News - February 3, 2008…At the Kimura Shoten store, which is the sole producer of the unique liquor containers called “Ika Tokkuri,” the skins of cuttlefish caught off the Sanriku Coast are formed by hand in the shape of tokkuri (sake bottles) and then repeatedly dried in the sun.
When you pour warm sake into an Ika Tokkuri, the taste of squid melts into the sake, giving it a mild taste. After you down the sake, you can even eat the squid container itself…more…
According to the TOHOKU guide, the ika tokkuri/squid sake flasks cost 500 yen or about $4.70 USD and it is best enjoyed, “when warmed sake is poured from the flask, it releases the tempting aroma of squid.”
These Ika tokkuri cups that are sold in most souvenir shops in the north of Japan are almost as entertaining than our previously reported on Fuckyou Cup® sake .
This “Hope” poster in the style of the “Obey Giant” of Shepard Fairey has even showed up here on the streets of uber-trendy Daikanyama-Shibuya, Tokyo. As far the Japanese are concerned, Barack Obama represents hope for the otherwise wacked-out America as you can watch in this CNN Tokyo report, Obama boom in Japan.
In addition, the AP reports that, “Germans are gaga over Barack Obama. He’s got Japan pretty jazzed, too”.
Directly above is the Japanese cover of Obama’s current best seller in Japan.
Our photographic journey today started with a silly link* to The Secret Museum of Mankind, a 1935 mystery book without any author, credits, copyright, page numbers, or index…Just photos and demented captions that targeted titillating teenage boys of the 1930s who normally willywanked to the National Geographic.
Natives of the little village of Kampanzan, in northern Formosa. Their tribe, which belongs to the Atayal group, is considered one of the least civilized on the island; but Japanese influence is slowly penetrating into the mountain recesses, and Kampanzan now boasts of a village school where small savages may receive elementary instruction under Japanese supervision.
Even odder are these smiling teen courtesans locked behind wooden bars in Yoshiwara pleasure quarters of turn-of-the-century Tokyo shown below. These photos of low-teen happy hookers come from the large Geddes Collection of old Japan.
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View video in full size.
IZA photosite
