Shakuhachi, shoes and screenshots

I heard of the Shakuhachi concept at a meeting of the local recorder society, when a guest conductor came, many years ago, to demonstrate and discuss the Japanese shakuhachi wooden flute. 

It has a long and complicated history, and was originally an instrument  on which monks played long tones as part of meditation practice. It was not a performance instrument.

The guest, a westerner who had studied for many years with meditative monks in Japan, explained how he had not realized this at first,  when he asked a great player to play some tones.

The idea is to let them sound until the sound ends. He was worried in case any other sound, a dog barking outside,  a shout from the street, would interrupt and ruin it. 

The player explained, no, any sounds that happen during the tone are part of it. Nothing is an interruption. 

I decided to think of it as the Shakuhachi effect, because it profoundly changed how I saw the many detours my life had taken. I realized they weren't detours at all, just the unfolding pattern, the fabric, some delicate soft colors, some dark rough threads. But they all belonged.

This was quickly demonstrated this morning when I joined a Zoom presentation on embroidered shoes from the collection mainly of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto. 

If you live around there, it sounds worth a trip once possible. It's a wonderful history in itself of the changes and art and politics and economics  of shoes. And you can check their website.

The shoes shown today are all very high end, custom created for fashion, dating from the 18th century to the 20th. They reflect the economics, about which a bit after you've enjoyed the craftsmanship. And I'll explain about today's Shakuhachi manifestation then, too.

These are screenshots which I accidentally learned how to take on my android phone by pushing the wrong button. This was after my computer shut down to do something or other, and I had to quick try my phone in which I luckily had Zoom loaded.

And caught up, then found a screenshot thing while I was trying to turn it for horizontal viewing, which I clicked happily to get better pix for your viewing pleasure. That led to learning how to find them again, hm, and finally how to edit and load here.

The computer is still not remembering how to get online, but it's in fact been a useful path this morning. The computer breakdown turned out to be a door opening.

About the shoes: the broader heels were to improve balance when the wearer was navigating wide panniered dresses. As dresses got narrower, so did heels. And eventually heels vanished, so regency indoor styles were pretty much flat slippers.

Precious metals were used for embroidery, usually indicating men, from the Guilds which barred women from metal stitching, were the workers. They claimed women would tarnish gold. Since nothing does, a likely story! 

If you're an embroiderer you'll have spotted bargello and stump work and other stitches and beautiful beadwork. The bootlike design was napoleonic, he fancying Roman concepts, laurel wreaths and all that, so he wore this style. Probably not in battle, I'm guessing, those bare toes, ow.

 And you'll have noticed the beetles, familiar from the Peacock Dress by Worth, if you're a reader from Art the Beautiful Metaphor where we've looked at motifs which I adapted to my Robe wip.

The wedge heel, here's politics and economics, , was invented by Ferragamo after Italy's 1930s incursion into Abyssinia resulted in an embargo on steel into Italy. The steel shanks Ferragamo used to strengthen the soles of high heeled shoes became unavailable. 

So he built high heels out of wine corks, a true inventor, needs must, and there's the wedge heel. We still have cork wedges because it's light in weight and can be shaped. Who knew?

This was a Zoom presentation you might want to check in case they upload it. It's recorded, but I don't know if it is to be generally available. Great if you love shoes and if you love fine stitching. These are artworks. Even the soles were painted as part of the design.

First day of spring, new learning, great start.

St Patrick's Aftermath

Today, since I'd mashed bananas last night so as to commit to banana bread today, I went ahead to make banana bread, though I really felt like trying Becki's Irish Soda Bread, but anyway, a commitment's ironclad when you've mashed the bananas already.

So I sorted out all the ingredients, noticed that the soda bread needed the same amount of butter as the banana bread, in passing, but not melted.  The banana bread needs it melted. It also needs the baker to remember to put the melted butter into the mixture. Which this one didn't until much later, when I noticed the microwave still quietly flashing end end end.  I wish it had an alarm like a car or something, or just shouted END END END. Then I would have discovered it before the banana bread was done.

And I found it didn't make much difference.  Just more breadlike texture, less cakelike, and still perfectly edible.

So now I had butter, once melted, now hardening up again, and I thought, well why not go ahead and make the soda bread, since the butter's half way there anyway. It needed cutting in to the dry ingredients, and was easy to do, because of being rehardened into a disk, not solid chunks.

I also found it might be an easy way to make ghee.  If it were left for longer, that is. For years when I used to make Indian food, I'd make my own ghee, clarified butter.  It just involved patiently cooking it down until all the milk solids rose up and you could scoop them off, leaving the clear liquid which is ghee.  

It has a very high smoking point, good for some cooking purposes, and is just good to cook with in general.  One of my Indian friends was amazed that I made my own!  She said, my mother still does, but my generation buys it made, can't believe you go to the trouble!  But I liked it, so that's fine.  Also I used ghee to make herb butter, where you beat in fresh herbs and keep it in the fridge where it hardens up till needed for cooking.

Anyway, this is why you see my first loaf of soda bread accompanying the banana bread up there. And here you can see the texture of the butterfree banana bread, just fine, really, used golden raisins.  And a slice of the warm soda bread, ready buttered.  It has the best crust evah!  Crunchy, so good. And the crumb is moist.  Thank you Becki.

So the marathon of baking was worth it. When Handsome Son visits sometime over the weekend, he can have some celebratory soda bread in honor of St. Patrick. I think he'll like it.  I know I do.  Can't think why I waited till now to get on with it and make it.

Becki, you'll love this: I checked your blogpost from a year ago, when you gave the recipe, and noticed in your comments one from me saying I was going to make it right away, it looked so good...anyway, I finally did.

Rain all day today, unceasing.  I had to get wet to take out the garbage, but I don't like it sitting on the step looking as if nobody lives here. While I was there, I checked the mailbox in case any wonderful stuff had appeared. 

My ACLU membership card arrived, this being one thing I thought I could do about all the vote suppression bills all over the country, help to fund the ACLU legal battles now in progress to overturn them and all the reproductive health intrusions in legal form, too.  I live in a state where reproductive health is better protected than most, and women's health in general, but a lot of women can't count on their state legislature for protection.  

And our vote  by mail is in place firmly, dropboxes, too,  also vote curing, thanks to a lot of us campaigning for three years.  So that's my little bit. No, it's not lucky when we get laws and pols who do good things. It's the result of endless grass roots work and great leadership from people like Winn Khuong. The harder we worked the luckier we got. 

Now we have to find ways to fight back the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) hate crimes blessed by the previous administration, and who better than Winn, a Vietnamese refugee with her family, to spearhead this effort, along with other Asian Americans.  She needs to catch her breath after the shock of yesterday, just now, but I'm ready when she is.

I've signed on to the MoveOn petition to remove the sheriff's officer who claimed the man who gunned down six Asians, mostly women, at three different establishments, was just having a bad day. Yeah, not as bad as the day for the women and their families. We want him removed from law enforcement entirely. He has Nazi sympathizer material on his social media accounts, and China blaming for the pandemic. Not a person I want administering the law.  Most people having a bad day might dig into a carton of icecream, or wave their fists or something. 

Onward, friends.  Every day we have some battles to fight.  And we can also find things to enjoy.  It's the tapestry of life.  The Shakuhachi effect.  Nothing is an interruption to our lives.  Everything is part of our lives.