For those of you not coming from Whirled to see this–and shame on you for not–I suspect a small introduction is in order. Whirled.com s one of the most interesting finds online…it’s a game that features the ability for the members to create their own games for others to play. It also features the ability to create your own world (whirled), featuring member made furniture, backdrops, interactive pieces, music, and a slew of other things. As I tell people when I first try and explain Whirled, you just have to try it to fully understand its awesomeness.

Launch the full version of Whirled

Anywho. There was/is a contest on making a room devoted to a creepy fairytale. Of course, as is my latest obsession, I based it around Japanese folklore, choosing the story of Kuchisake Onna to portray. Wikipedia has a nicely put article on it, but the basic story is as follows:

Once lived a woman rather vain. Her samurai lover found her in the arms of another. As punishment, he slit her mouth from ear to ear. Out of vanity or vindictiveness, she lived on, turning into a yokai. Fast forward to modern times, and her story gets a little more…violent. She stalks people. Wears a surgical mask and asks “Am I pretty?” If they say “no,” she either kills or disfigures them with a pair of scissors–alternatively she uses a scythe, knife, katana, piece of glass from her shattered mirror–but if they say “yes,” then she removes the mask and ask, “and still?” The slight bit of flinch, she kills them. If they say “no,” she kills or disfigures them. If the say “yes,” she follows them home and kills or disfigures them on their doorstep.

From what I’ve read, it’s supposed to be a test of modesty and humility. Modern folklorists add that if you tell her she looks average that she’ll go away.

Now there are a lot of interesting local colours to the story. Depending on where the story is being told depends on the minute details. Almost all have her hunting in parks and going after school children to young adults.

They often change the way she hunts. Some stories say that you can outrun her, others say that she’s actually a murdered olympic sprinter, and others say she drives a red Lamborghini so there’s no way to escape her.

Some place her as a solid person, looking entirely normal. Some have her flashing in and out, a ghostly figure.

And depending on where you’re at…there are some interesting ways to repel her. The most common, is the use of pomade. Apparently she can’t stand the smell of it. Having it on your hair or squirting it at her will keep her stunned long enough for you to get away. Others say showing her her own reflection will keep her from attacking you…as long as you keep the mirror pointed at her face.

Perhaps the most smile inducing repellant is not a repellant at all, but more of a gift. They say if you throw or give her a piece of Beko-Ame–which is a traditional hard Japanese candy (think Jolly Rancher)in an amber colouring–she’ll never cross your path again. Some versions of this repellant even have her blessing the person for the gift.

My personal rooms feature the playground setting and a room in a traditional house. The playground room further features:

•  the Kuchisake Onna (which means Slit Mouth Woman) popping in and out with audio of “am I pretty?” and “and still?” occasionally popping up with her scissors.
• The red Lamborghini, earlier explained.
• Wanted posters of the Kuchisake Onna in her two forms
• Missing posters based off of friends (permissions granted, of course)
• A slide and swing featuring ghost children, victims of the Kuchisake Onna
• The grafitti numbers.  I’ve been asked about this a few times, it’s my signature.  It’s an easy code.  Really easy. 
• And a linked backpack from either a victim or a survivor with the sory of Kuchisake Onna in it (this links to the second room).

The second room features a different style altogether and includes a click throughable storybook in the middle of the wall.  This room features:

• Background that mimics the room in the storybook.
• Laughing Buddha statue pointing out to click through the storybook (seemed fitting in the idea of karmic justice)
• A simple memorial altar for the woman the Kuchisake Onna used to be.  It includes her before photo (links back to orignal room) and an incense burner with animated smoke.
• The music in this room is from The Twelve Girls Band who are amazing.

I’m more than happy to answer any other questions y’all can think of…because at this point, this is about all my brain can think of to explain.  It’s been fun.  A lot of fun.  Reminded me why I love drawing so much…

Anywho.  Today’s subject is food.  There’s a notebook somewhere with things I thought were interesting while I was sick (fever even on antibiotics and sleeping 20 hours a day), but I don’t know where it went…for all I know, it could have all been in my mind.  I’m also severely frightened at what it holds.

I’ll start with quotes, move to recipes.  All the quotes either come from cookbooks/cooking magazines or are involving food/cooking/baking.  No fancy explaining this time…take them as they’re given.

“Live in each season as it passes: breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit.“

-Henry David Thoreau

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well if one has not dined well.”

-Virginia Woolf

“Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the most beautiful words in the English language.”

-Henry James

“We’re not building a rocket ship here, we’re cooking–plain and simple.“

-Emeril Lagasse

“When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.”

-John Ruskin

“A life without love is like a year without summer.”

-Swedish Proverb

“People need dreams, tere’s as much nourishment in ‘em as food.”

-Dorothy Gilman

“Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower.”

-Albert Camus

“Once in a young lifetime one should be allowed to have as muh sweetness as one can possibly want and hold.”

-Judith Olney

“Even if something is left undone, everyone must take tome to sit and watch the leaves turn.”

-Elizabeth Lawrence

“When witches go riding and black cats are seen, the moon laughs and whispers ’tis near Halloween.”

-Author Unknown

“We give thanks for unknown blessings already on the way.”

-Author Unknown

“Appetizers are the little things you keep eating until you lose your appetite.”

-Joe Moore

“Cooker is not chemistry. It is an art.  It requires instinct & taste rather than exact measurements.”

-Marcel Boulestin

“Laughter is brightest where food is best.”

-Irish Proverb

That seems annoyingly long of a list…so two cocktails from Sandra Lee’s Semi-Homemade magazines (august/september and october/november issues).

Pineapple-Mango Slush (serves 4)

2 cups frozen pineapple chunks

2 cups frozen mango chunks

1 cup coconut rum

1/4 cup mango nectar

Instructions:

In the container of an electric blender, combine pineapple, mango, rum and nectar. Process until smooth.  Serve immediately.

Almond Pear Cocktail (serves 4)

2 cups pear nectar

1 cup amaretto

1/2 cup vanilla vodka

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Pear slices

Instructions:

In a large pitcer, combine pear nectar, amaretto, vodka, and lemon juice.  Garnish with pear slices.  Serve over ice or at room temperature.

And there we have it…I think I’ll start adding a recipe per post…I doubt I’ll have many more cocktails.  I don’t particularly drink…but I love to cook and I have a good few recipes that need recording lest I misplace them (or their cookbooks) again and can’t find them.

I’d like to say I have massive amounts of things to say and people to quote…but frankly I haven’t been in any mood of late to listen or look at much of anything.  However, on pure happenstance, I came across a blog article on the artistry and importance of the corridor in science fiction movies. 

It can be read here: http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/313130/in_praise_of_the_scifi_corridor.html

It seems random enough, I’m sure, for me to be excited by this article, but I’ve long been a fan of the aesthetics of science fiction (and horror) movies, to the point that if the movie (or video game) is downright beautiful (whether it be the kind of bright happy beautiful or the super gritty dark and horrible beautiful, I’m not picky), I could care less what it’s been about…I usually have to watch those types of movies twice.  The first time I spend so much time focusing on the aesthetics that I miss the plot.  The second time…well, many times that’s just a futile attempt at paying attention to the plot and falling into the trap of aesthetics.

But the point of the article that was the most exciting was when it touched on the fact that corridors make even the most bizarre movie familiar. 

Anyone who’s taken a class in film theory can tell you that a movie has to form some semblence of believability before thrusting the watcher into the cold chaos that is the created universe.  The idea of familiarizing the audience and then defamiliarizing them with objects they thought they knew is no new invention, for sure, but science fiction–with many of it’s overly complicated universal differences–is only succesful if it employs this defamiliarizing tactic effectively.

The article relates that corridors are such an ingrained part of everyone’s life, that there is something familiar in seeing them on the screen, even in bizarre forms they provide a sense of knowledge and comfort to the audience.

In a way, the article–or at least my conclusions from it–tries to make the point that a corridor physically works to get from point a to point b (or any variation or number of points), corridors in science fiction movies work to take the audience from the familiar to the created universe, fluidly.

I suppose it’s a very weak interpretation, but honestly,  it’s something that would make a wonderfully interesting paper…

In other news, I’ve been working with Japanese stuffs again.  Rereading Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide. Folklore in general is fascinating, as it exemplifies a culture’s deepest wants and desires as well as their fears.

The current art piece I’m working on, focuses around the myth of the Futakuchi Onna, the Woman with Two Mouths.  Most of the stories have the woman being cruel to step children, starving them, sometimes to death.  As punishment, forty-nine days after the child’s death, the mother is inflicted with a second mouth on the back of her head.  The mouth grumbles and shouts curses independently of the woman.  It also has an insatiable hunger.  Her hair provides it with food, ever feeding and eating.

However, a version of the myth provides that the second mouth is formed because a woman bites her tongue and never speaks her mind.  She internalizes all her true thoughts and beliefs to the point that they finally have to be let out, and the second mouth is born.  The second mouth is said to be unable to tell a lie.

The other Japanese novelty I looked into were Kokeshi.  They are little painted wooden dolls.  I had no idea of their name or their origin, but own a few.  On doing another art piece, I decided to look up kokeshi in an attempt to make sure I didn’t, in the course of the art, commit some sort of taboo.  What I found was something rather interesting and more dear to my heart.

I’ve often mused about translation and mistranslation.  The way that something said in one language never remains quite the same translated into another.  The Japanese have an interesting dillema comprised within their written language.  Japanese as a written language is an evolved hybrid of sorts.  It starts as an ancient chinese script, that is morphed by calligraphy, and simplified by those trying to find the one true path.  What results is three different writing forms to express the same word.  Meaning that written in each way, it means something slightly or completely different.

Kokeshi for example, is traditionally spelled こけし, however, the characters 子消し form the same word.  Alan Booth uses this variation as a support for his theory that Kokeshi were originally intended as fetishized items to take the place of infants that were killed under the practice of infanticide in pre 20th century Japan.  The characters 子消し mean “extinguish the child”.  However, there’s no proof of that theory…or any other on the original intention for the dolls.  (Most originations point to them being given at hotsprings as souvenirs of sorts).  It’s interesting, however, to look at the internal linguistic struggle as sort of a microcosm emulating the wider world’s translation woes.

Have I mentioned how beautiful I find Panic! At the Disco’s Pretty. Odd. album?

D.H. Lawrence said “Trust the tale, not the artist.”  Somehow this reminds me of reader response/Stanley Fish theory… it was said (by professor) in regards to Laura Riding (will that woman never stop haunting me?  First I find her letters on the backs of manuscripts I’m working with, then she kept popping up in the research, and now she’s back as a full fledged beast) refusing to call herself a feminist/woman author and her adamant arguement that her work on Eve (pardon…I don’t have the essay sitting right next to me) was not to be read as a feminist piece, even though that’s what it looks like *cough*walkslikeaduck,talkslikeaduck,ismostcertainlyneveraduck*cough*

Which came first? Unity/Community or Seperation?  From the same class as the above, the professor asked the question, shaking her head as she shared the fact that one grad student had declared seperation came first.  The professor reminds, that the first parts of life are spent in (what I will term a parasitic) a union between mother and child.  A community/unity sharing the same living space, for lack of a better description.

She added that young children are very clingy and unity oriented for a long while, that we all start out being the center of our universe.  To the point were the two year old, who’s just beginning to feel brave enough to break away from the unity still screams “I AM THE ALL!  That cookie is mine!”  My cousin is near three…and she’s all about sharing with anyone except for me.  If I try to take a bite of food from her, there’s usually an eruption of tears or she treats me like her dog back home and baps me on the nose telling me “No, Tishy.  Mine.”

“Geography has consequences.”  It’s a simple idea that I don’t think too many people really explore.  It was said in discussion of Ireland and the fate of island nations to be invaded mercilessly…

NT=IT Naval/Nautical technology=Information technology.  Now it’s about who has the smallest computer system that does the most stuff (my senior english teacher would murder me for using the word stuff…).  Not too long ago, it was who had the most boats, who had the biggest boats, and whose boat could go the farthest inland (i.e. who could get the most conquerable land through either force or exploratory claim)

Also…while a busted back may feel good when you’re lying down on the tile kitchen floor, there is a problem with then trying to get said back off the ground without causing more problems.

Oh…and apparently it’s bad luck for a baby to see it’s reflection before age 1 (and here I thought horror movies were going to be mind numbing…but of course I had to pick up the ones that go deep into kabbala and Jewish mysticism and rituals…)

Call it a back up, if you will.  I’ve been assigned to keep a commonplace book, and while I have one…it doesn’t particularly last very long in the disorganisation of my life.  I usually just type things in somewhere or make a sticky note of where the notebook last was…it’s not always a good enough reminder, though this assignment spurred me to pull out the dusty (and what I can only imagine is rat bitten) ones I was required to keep for IB.  Definitely a blast from the past…with some rather odd quotes that I suspect will never make sense to me. Ever.

A surprisingly large amount of mentionings to ninja pineapples…or ninjas stealing pineapples.  Which I know we did for a Destination Imagination skit, but not entirely sure what the importance to anything was in my commonplace book.

Under that pretense, I hope to make this online commonplace book much easier to understand.  A line or two as to why I’ve written the random word, phrase, picture, or song.  A thought about its importance in the future.  That’d be rather nice…as I see to forget why things are important quite fast.

With that said, today’s random bits are two facts I found while searching for historical trivia.

1. Tattoos were used in ancient Japan to show a person’s eligibility for marriage.

     The fact was by itself, without extra information, but in my mind I can hope it signified a person was off limits?  Or at least that tattooing was altered once marriage was had rather than removed in the ways it could have been back then. *shudders*

2. The hood ornament of a Rolls Royce has a name (of course it does…it’s a piece of art!), it goes by the name of ‘The Statue of Ecstasy’

    I don’t have much to say about that.  I’m not sure what to say…I’ve been mulling it around.  Trying to think of what to say on it.  I suspect my total speechlessness and the inability to form a coherent question on the subject of the name means I should either look further into it or forget it…

But!  I said only two…I have one (or two) more after looking at the notes for the day.  Dr. Cutting was discussing the difference between religious orders according to gender.  Where men becoming monks are asked to become less selfish (and find it a struggle), women becoming nuns often time are those that are already the most selfless and meekest people you’ll meet.  Even so, nuns are asked to become even more selfless. 

This long introduction leads to her anecdote a friend/colleauge told her:  When priests came to visit the nuns, the nuns would eat oatmeal and feed the priests the eggs.  This trying to be overly selfless led to the oatmeal strengthening the nuns’ hearts, and the cholesterol in the eggs killing off the priests.

Oh…and something I may talk more about later… “Quoth the Rattler (pay) EVERMORE!”