Soot foot
Recently I read the book (on Kindle) Moonwalking with Einstein, a book about a reporter who covered a memory championship and got sucked into that world, going on to win the US tournament a year later. I found it entertaining with a few very interesting bits about the current reigning theories of how our memories work and why they seem to fail us sometimes. There was a small bit about our perceptions of time that got me thinking... to paraphrase and summarize from a section of the book (which I don't have right in front of me at the moment, so any errors or misinterpretations are entirely my fault), a big part of the reason you can remember so many specific things vividly from your childhood over a large period of time that seemed to last forever (the entire period of your childhood, not specific "time flies when your having fun" stuff. More along the lines of "that summer seemed to last forever") as compared to nowadays when you look at the calendar and think "Holy crap, it's already mid-March? Wasn't it just December yesterday?" is a matter of routines vs. new experiences. Memories get tied to other bits of input, and when you're a kid, there's so much new stuff that all the memories get tied to. Now, you've been working the same job for how long, with the same routine, with a bunch of stuff that doesn't change all that much, and it all kind of blurs together.
A couple posts back, I mentioned I was getting a little bored of the routine, and needed to get out more often. Taking the above into consideration, I realize it's not so much "get out more" in a social sense as a "break the routine you've fallen into" sort of thing. Because even the things you like doing can start to get stale if you don't mix it up a bit sometimes. And luckily, I've had a few chances to do some very different stuff recently.
First off, I was invited to wear the Darth Maul costume again for the advanced screening of Star Wars Episode I in 3D in Japan. As this was a semi-official event, I opted to go for the better rendition of the character by foregoing the bald cap and shaving my head. Hair will re-grow and it gives me a good reason to break out the hats anyway. One of my co-workers came along and took some photos, which were just posted in the company blog. I've not translated the Japanese into English yet (I do that for practice sometimes, though it doesn't get posted anywhere afterward), so you're on your own with funky online translation, but you can check out the photos of the event here, which includes a couple of in-progress makeup shots for those of you who are interested in that sort of thing.
And for those of you who ARE interested in that sort of thing, I tried a new method of horns this time. Previously, I'd made them out of clay and spirit gummed them to my head, which worked out ok. This time around, I had some lighter weight horns that are still solid to the touch (as opposed to latex rubber horns that you can buy). They don't have much of a base to them, though, so straight spirit gum attachment wasn't an option. I did apply them with spirit gum first, then also applied a layer of cotton to both the bottom edges of the horns and my head. That was followed with a bit of liquid latex to cover the cotton and blend the seams. They worked out extremely well. The video is as yet unedited, but I got some video of me taking the horns off, and you can see that they were in no danger of being knocked off by a slight bump, as the clay horns had been. I hope to get the video up before too long.
The event itself was quite fun. Lots of people wanted their photo taken with Darth Maul (as well as with all of the members of the 501st in their costumes. I will be officially joining the 501st soon, just need a couple bits and pieces to make the costume more screen accurate), so it was a crowd pleaser. I also met and spoke with a couple of Japanese celebreties and George Lucas's daughter, Amanda. It went so well, that I've also been asked to do it again for three more events. Unfortunately, two of the events occur on the same day, so I can only make two out of the three. But for the events I will be making it to... well, it's kind of a big deal, I think. Along with the other festivities going on, Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia, for you Star Wars illiterates out there who, let's be honest, are probably not reading this) and Jake Lloyd (who played Anakin Skywalker as a boy in Episode I) will be coming for a signing. I may also be making my way back from one of the events on the train in costume. I figure that should be fun.
Last weekend, my regular Sunday Japanese sword class was cancelled. Luckily, it was the same weekend that a certain festival was going in in Takao, a few stops down the train line from me, so I made my way out to Takao and toured the temple up on Mt. Takao first, enjoying the statuary of all the Tengu (Japanese demon-spirit type things). There were quite a few representations of two different types of Tengu, the long nosed Tengu and the Raven-like Tengu (coincidentally, the next book I was reading on Kindle was a book about corvids, the family of crows and ravens, which I finished on the way back from Takao). After walking the mountain trails for a while, I rode the chair lift back down the mountain and attended the Hiwatari Festival. Hiwatari, by the way, means "Fire walking". You can check out the Tengu photos and a few shots of the lead-up to the firewalking here. I did do the fire-walking myself, as well, though since I went on my own, I had nobody to hold the camera for me to make any photographic proof. And fire-walking is a bit of a misnomer. There were rows of burning stuff on either side, but the bits where you walked between them was naught but ash at that point. Anyone who's jumped over a campfire has run higher risks. Still, it's not everyday you can say you participated in a bit of fire-walking. (Takao Temple's website with events page, scroll down to the bottom for the fire-walking)
One thing that's always made me laugh a bit at some of the fire-walking rituals I've heard tell of is the phrase "white hot coals" that they walk across. In my experience, coals that are white are coals that have burned out leaving ash behind. Now, if people were walking over red hot coals, I might be impressed. All the smoke and burning bits in photos I've seen of people walking over coals was coming from the sides of the row of coals, where there are still some bits burning, not from the middle where they're walking.
So, yeah, I think maybe those would qualify as breaking up the routine a bit. Now to keep finding more things to do after the Darth Maul appearances that are coming up...
A couple posts back, I mentioned I was getting a little bored of the routine, and needed to get out more often. Taking the above into consideration, I realize it's not so much "get out more" in a social sense as a "break the routine you've fallen into" sort of thing. Because even the things you like doing can start to get stale if you don't mix it up a bit sometimes. And luckily, I've had a few chances to do some very different stuff recently.
First off, I was invited to wear the Darth Maul costume again for the advanced screening of Star Wars Episode I in 3D in Japan. As this was a semi-official event, I opted to go for the better rendition of the character by foregoing the bald cap and shaving my head. Hair will re-grow and it gives me a good reason to break out the hats anyway. One of my co-workers came along and took some photos, which were just posted in the company blog. I've not translated the Japanese into English yet (I do that for practice sometimes, though it doesn't get posted anywhere afterward), so you're on your own with funky online translation, but you can check out the photos of the event here, which includes a couple of in-progress makeup shots for those of you who are interested in that sort of thing.
And for those of you who ARE interested in that sort of thing, I tried a new method of horns this time. Previously, I'd made them out of clay and spirit gummed them to my head, which worked out ok. This time around, I had some lighter weight horns that are still solid to the touch (as opposed to latex rubber horns that you can buy). They don't have much of a base to them, though, so straight spirit gum attachment wasn't an option. I did apply them with spirit gum first, then also applied a layer of cotton to both the bottom edges of the horns and my head. That was followed with a bit of liquid latex to cover the cotton and blend the seams. They worked out extremely well. The video is as yet unedited, but I got some video of me taking the horns off, and you can see that they were in no danger of being knocked off by a slight bump, as the clay horns had been. I hope to get the video up before too long.
The event itself was quite fun. Lots of people wanted their photo taken with Darth Maul (as well as with all of the members of the 501st in their costumes. I will be officially joining the 501st soon, just need a couple bits and pieces to make the costume more screen accurate), so it was a crowd pleaser. I also met and spoke with a couple of Japanese celebreties and George Lucas's daughter, Amanda. It went so well, that I've also been asked to do it again for three more events. Unfortunately, two of the events occur on the same day, so I can only make two out of the three. But for the events I will be making it to... well, it's kind of a big deal, I think. Along with the other festivities going on, Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia, for you Star Wars illiterates out there who, let's be honest, are probably not reading this) and Jake Lloyd (who played Anakin Skywalker as a boy in Episode I) will be coming for a signing. I may also be making my way back from one of the events on the train in costume. I figure that should be fun.
Last weekend, my regular Sunday Japanese sword class was cancelled. Luckily, it was the same weekend that a certain festival was going in in Takao, a few stops down the train line from me, so I made my way out to Takao and toured the temple up on Mt. Takao first, enjoying the statuary of all the Tengu (Japanese demon-spirit type things). There were quite a few representations of two different types of Tengu, the long nosed Tengu and the Raven-like Tengu (coincidentally, the next book I was reading on Kindle was a book about corvids, the family of crows and ravens, which I finished on the way back from Takao). After walking the mountain trails for a while, I rode the chair lift back down the mountain and attended the Hiwatari Festival. Hiwatari, by the way, means "Fire walking". You can check out the Tengu photos and a few shots of the lead-up to the firewalking here. I did do the fire-walking myself, as well, though since I went on my own, I had nobody to hold the camera for me to make any photographic proof. And fire-walking is a bit of a misnomer. There were rows of burning stuff on either side, but the bits where you walked between them was naught but ash at that point. Anyone who's jumped over a campfire has run higher risks. Still, it's not everyday you can say you participated in a bit of fire-walking. (Takao Temple's website with events page, scroll down to the bottom for the fire-walking)
One thing that's always made me laugh a bit at some of the fire-walking rituals I've heard tell of is the phrase "white hot coals" that they walk across. In my experience, coals that are white are coals that have burned out leaving ash behind. Now, if people were walking over red hot coals, I might be impressed. All the smoke and burning bits in photos I've seen of people walking over coals was coming from the sides of the row of coals, where there are still some bits burning, not from the middle where they're walking.
So, yeah, I think maybe those would qualify as breaking up the routine a bit. Now to keep finding more things to do after the Darth Maul appearances that are coming up...