Random things that catch my fancy. View At Your Own Risk. Not gay as in happy, queer as in "fuck you." Says stupid sh*t before coffee. And often after. Old enough to have used a rotary dial phone and remember a 2400bps modem being fast. I will not insist you be 18+ to follow, but I will not censor myself for the benefit of any minors who follow me. About Me | My writing | AO3 | Image Edits | Prompts | Yarn Fund
Gather around, children. I’m about to tell you a story of ye olde fandom. (Real life fandom friends, I’m sorry. You’ve heard this story a thousand times, I know.)
Long before Disney bought Star Wars, long before the new trilogy, before even the prequels, and themselves predating the “remastered” versions of the original trilogy, Star Wars experienced it’s second renaissance in novel form. And comic book form. Skim the pages of the dozens upon dozens of Expanded Universe (”EU”) novels and you’ll find lots of foundations for the things you see on screen these days. Ben Solo, for sure, has his origins there.
But it was also a different era for the fandom. The 90′s saw the transition from fanzine culture to online fan fiction archives. The programming ability and computing power you needed to make a fan fiction archive that the authors could edit themselves did not yet exist in an accessible way. Series based archives popped up, mostly hand curated by webmasters posting .txt files of chapters and stories that they’d received from authors via email. Or usenet. Or mailinglists. I spent many of my teen years on Gossamer, the X-Files archive, and Fanfix.com, my favorite Star Wars archive. I remember haunting a Babylon 5 archive at the time, too, but it’s lost to history.
I read everything. Everything. But, by far my favorite fan fiction of all time was, and I will always remember this, “As Simple and as Complicated as All That” by Xia Sang Li. It was epic. Four novels. NOVELS. Dozens of chapters. Hundreds and hundreds of pages. It follows Luke Skywalker’s decision to finally throw caution to the wind and fall into bed, and in love, with Mara Jade. Written in the sweet spot after her character was introduced and explored, but before permission was given to the licensed authors to marry Luke off, it was an amazing indulgence. And, it was epic in scale and scope. The great plot twist in book one was that, spoiler alert, when Gaeriel Captison died, leaving Luke to look after her orphaned daughter, she didn’t tell the whole story. You see, Luke and Mara had indulged each other before, had a secret love child, and this brief period of time was erased or minimized in their memories. Slowly, the two come to realize, through their haze of lust and passion, that something is conspiring to keep them apart, and that this little girl isn’t who she seemed. Themes of family, and duty, and passion, and trauma. Force visions, original characters, and sex sex sex. It was amazing.
Epic right??? Right?? Wanna read it??
It’s impossible. The Fanfix.com archive zipped the textfiles, so the Wayback Machine hasn’t archived them. The Geocities page went down before the Geocities archive was published after its closure. And, the original author’s blog, not updated in a decade, features only a few chapters of a rewrite, an AU of her original epic.
But it’s not dead.
Starting in 1998, my teenage self printed the whole fucking epic. I did one chapter at a time. It took more than a year. I had it all saved, too, on a 3 ½ inch floppy that got destroyed. Beyond the author’s own hard drive somewhere on this green earth, I think this might be the only copy.
Every few years, when nostalgia overtakes me, I reread it, from front to back. The gender politics are very different. The interpretation of Luke, too, vastly different from modern fandom’s take. Sometimes I wish I could find the author, buy her dinner, and tell her how important her work was to me. But, that’s probably impossible. Sometimes I think about re-digitizing it and, like a different kind of pirate, putting it back into circulation. But, that’s just a wish. A whimsical dream. The notebook is at least 3 inches thick, with front to back printed pages of text. It would take… years. Certainly it took years to write. But, it was part of the floating world of fandom. And, it faded away. Stuff like this should never fade away.
Fan fic authors… I implore you. Never delete your work.
You can’t know the impact you make. You might think it not good, embarrassing, or irrelevant. It’s not. Not to someone. Not to me.
Seriously. You have no idea how many fanfics I had wanted to print and bind just so that I can keep it in my personal library to read. Some fics are so damn GOOD that they deserve to exist binded as a physical copy. Save them please!!! All fics matter to someone
It’s not quite a museum, but there is the Fan Culture Preservation Project, which is a join venture between the OTW and the Special Collections department at the University of Iowa Libraries. It’s a place to preserve hard copies of fanworks and fandom memorabilia.
(Though it seems likely that @mizunocaitlin would like to keep a beloved fanfic.)
Dear fic readers: Save it before you lose it!
authors have pleanty of reason to delete their shit, sad as it is, but you can still have it!! do what that person did, use https://www.lulu.com/ like i did for my faves stuff (tho already archived on gdrive by someone else), but find a way to PRINT IT OUT if you love it so much. dont just rely on digital copies because shit happens.
This is my current printed library of fanfics. This way works best for fanfics up to 20000 words, but I’m learning basic bookbinding for the longer ones (an experiment of that can be seen in the right side of the picture - “This, You Protect” by Owlet), because I LOVE HOLDING THEM WHEN I READ THEM and also, what will I read if the power goes down? Exactly.
If someone could tag that person who did the gorgeous binding of @senlinyu‘s magnificent Manacled… I mean the book is awesome, and the book binding ? Gives it justice. Also I think that the person who did the binding has made / is making other bindings? Maybe? I can’t quite remember?
I feel so vindicated in seeing this post, and knowing I’m not the only one who has “probably-the-only-extant-copy” fanfics from the late 90s in binders.
I took probably the most ridiculous and difficult route, hand bookbinding. Here’s an example of an earlier-era fic I’ve bound for archival purposes.
And some Bookbinding resources if anyone wants to join in the efforts! Rock on, fanfic hamsters!
In high school my best friend and I were known as the book printers. At the time neither of us had access to the internet beyond school so we did the only thing that made sense, printed everything. We would spend as much time as we could after school, usually on fridays, huddled around the library computers printing fics we wanted to read. The librarians didn’t mind, one of them actually thought it was charming and christened us her book printers.
I owe so much to authors, the early ones who showed me that it was ok to think up grand worlds and fill them with my favorite characters as well as characters of my own creation, and especially the new authors who quickly became my found family and have taught me that finding yourself through your writing is perfectly acceptable, and losing yourself to an indulgent plot line is fine too.
If I’ve learned anything in the decades since I offered to pay the school for the gross amount of paper we used, it’s that you should never forget your roots, and always remember you might just be the one creating fertile grounds for others to put down roots of their own.
If you ever have the chance, do it, print the pages and bind them. The story already holds a special place in your heart, isn’t it only fair that you hold it close as well?
i’ve been contacted a few times by people who have bound my fanfic into print: it never stops being a delight and an honor to see that some stuff i wrote for online consumption meant enough to someone that they wanted to keep it in their actual home, on their actual bookshelf.
can't believe i haven't told you guys about my bell ringing lessons. i am learning to ring church bells. why? because it's sick as fuck. and also i get a lot of joy from being a dirty little sinner ringing gods doorbells
the cafe i work at is part of my local abbey and the average age of the bell ringers there is about 70 so the head bell ringer dude is making it his life's mission to bring that down by recruiting the entire cafe. he also thinks i don't have a life (correct) and so decided i needed a hobby (correct) and now i pull a rope for an hour a week while gossiping
also head bell ringer dude casually dropped one lesson that his ex wife stabbed him once, and then never followed through on that fun bit of information apart from to tell me they didn't get divorced until like 10 years later so. i also keep going in the hopes that one day he will fill me in on the rest of this
The art of change ringing is peculiar to the English, and, like most English peculiarities, unintelligible to the rest of the world. To the musical Belgian, for example, it appears that the proper thing to do with a carefully tuned ring of bells is to play a tune upon it. By the English campanologist, the playing of tunes is considered to be a childish game, only fit for foreigners; the proper use of bells is to work out mathematical permutations and combinations. When he speaks of the music of his bells, he does not mean musician’s music – still less what the ordinary man calls music. To the ordinary man, in fact, the pealing of bells is a monotonous jangle and a nuisance, tolerable only when mitigated by remote distance and sentimental association... His passion – and it is a passion – finds its satisfaction in mathematical completeness and mechanical perfection, and as his bell weaves her way rhythmically up from lead to hinder place and down again, he is filled with the solemn intoxication that comes of intricate ritual faultlessly performed.
- Dorothy Sayers, The Nine Tailors (1934)
Like everyone who accidentally absorbed it in the course of a detective novel, I’ve been lowkey fascinated by English change ranging for a long time, possibly because of this 90-year-old reference to THE RITUALS ARE INTRICATE. This whole passage is so funny to me that I practically have it memorised. Have literally tried to listen on YouTube to work out what the fuck the loadbearing Grandsire Triples are. You go OP have FUN
I DO THIS! we ring at 2 different towers (the only ones on this island) and one of them has the oldest set of change ringing bells in Australia and has lots of sepia portraits and panoramas on the wall. Usually towers have very interesting and tight staircases to get up to the ringing rooms.
Grandsire Triples is very much real but I've never rung it because we usually only have enough ringers for Grandsire Doubles. Grandsire is my favourite method actually - as far as I know it's one of the oldest methods & it's different from the others because there are two hunt bells but which ones they are can change depending on when bobs and singles are called.
triples - 7 bells because there are 3 pairs of bells that can swap with one staying in the same place
doubles - 5 bells (same as above because 2 pairs + 1 extra)
from 3 up: singles, minimus, doubles, minor, triples, major, caters, royal, cinques, maximus
(this is one of the things i love about bells - you get silly words to know)
sometimes ringers decide to ring for over 3 hours without stopping or repeating any sequence of notes. that's a peal! it's based on the time it takes to ring every order of 7 notes (7!)
A lot of bellringers are old and retired and can use html so there are some pretty good resources out there BUT they will be completely incomprehensible at first.
you can look at Dove's Guide to see if there's a ringing tower near you. England has an insane number of towers, the US has a few, Australia has like 60. pakistan has 1 apparently
you should be able to find an email address pretty easily & arrange to go and visit some bells. they are friendly (in my experience! it could be nasty sometimes i don't know!?)
also? it is SO mathematical and patterns-based and no-one's tried to turn me Anglican. the God lives in the numbers and nowhere else. highly recommend it if you like hanging out with old people
How cool. I'm reading The Nine Tailors atm and it's answered my (completely unasked) question about why English bell ringing is Like That (unmusical, full of maths).
In my town we have a nice secular carillon that the piano nerds can go and punch out their little classical tunes on (apparently it's set out like a piano but instead of a keyboard you hit the levers with your fist).
Haven't made it to the end of the murder mystery yet, but at this point convinced that the bells themselves are the ones killing people. Beautiful, terrifying, absolutely bonkers 11/10.
Oh hey, do you know what time it is? It is highly specific resource time!
Today we have the Royal School of Needlework Stitch Bank! There are HUNDREDS of stitch types in the RSN Stitch Bank.
And more added regularly, let’s look at a recent addition
I picked the first one in the 25 recently added Elizabethan stitches, the Elizabethan French Stitch
The stitch bank provides written and photo tutorials as well as a video option to learn to do it yourself. There are examples of the stitch in use, resources, references, everything but a needle and thread!
I looked at some of the tutorials last night and holy shit I'm so impressed! They're SO thorough!
Not only do they have written and video instructions, but there are photo and illustration options for each image AND a "flip view" button so that left handed people can see all the images in reverse!
I am going to jump in and add, as you said they are very detailed in their directions, something that takes a lot of time and money.
If anyone who has enjoyed this resource has the means, I encourage you to adopt or sponsor a stitch to help keep this free to access. I know not everyone has the means to (fair, been there) but if you can, check out their sponsor options
RSN Stitch Bank Progress
And one other resource I have shared before, The Lady's Magazine. Embroidery patterns from 1770-1819. In case anyone wants some historic ideas for using all these new embroidery stitches
The dangers of being photographed by a photographer who doesn't like your fascist bullshit.
There is a crazy story by Vanity Fair about Trump staffers.
And some of the photography was... interesting.
Including these wild facial close ups.
There is ZERO retouching done on these. Which is very unusual for photos taken this close up. The expressions chosen are very odd. The lighting is a ring flash very far away (probably to create a catchlight in the eyes) and then another diffused light source from the side. The ring flash was placed below their eye line, so you get a tiny bit of that creepy uplighting like in a Frankenstein movie. And neither light source was placed very close so the harder light really shows every pore and wrinkle and lip filler injection site. (See: why hard light is bad for porn.)
Basically, he used the opposite of every technique one would employ to create a flattering photo.
But the reason I think this photographer twisted the knife to make these photos look worse was his use of white balance on Karoline Leavitt and Susie Wiles.
If you want to make someone look sickly and demonic, you make their skin tone less warm and add green. When I corrected the white balance on the photos, I discovered the photographer reduced warmth by about 15% and increased green by about 45%.
This is not a camera setting oopsie.
This is not artistic color grading.
This is a photographer thinking, "I'm gonna make these bitches green."
And when you see the photos adjusted to a neutral white balance, this act of photographic sabotage becomes clear.
The only other explanation would be that this photographer is incompetent. But when you look at his other portraits of them, they are quite well done and properly color graded.
These outtakes where the flash didn't go off are also AI generated.
I like this spooky dutch angle one.
I was just starting to learn flash and I didn't have all the equipment I needed. Since corgis are quite short, I had to put the lighting on the ground. The off camera flash was on a tipped over lightstand with a shoot-through umbrella to diffuse the light.
But I had no wireless triggers. And the only other way to trigger a flash, is with another flash. So I used the on-camera pop up flash to trigger the main flash.
But I had two issues.
First, I did not want that dinky on camera flash affecting my picture.
Second, triggering a flash with a flash is best done indoors. The flash will bounce all around the room and eventually hit the sensor so the main flash triggers. When you are outdoors, there is no bouncing.
SO... I took a little handheld makeup mirror and angled it toward my main flash. This blocked the dinky pop up flash and sent the beam of light towards the main flash to trigger it.
I was lying on the wet morning grass, holding a camera in one hand, a mirror in the other, trying to aim the mirror exactly toward the main flash, making crazy noises to get Otis's attention, and trying to get the focus point on his face so I didn't get a blurry photo. Also, Otis was much more interested in sniffing things than posing for a photo.
Here is an overhead view that might help explain.
I await all of your comments saying my amazing drawring is clearly AI generated.
Only 30% of the time did the flash actually go off. Aiming the mirror was tricky and I was doing like 8 things at once. I wasn't even sure I got the photo I wanted. But when I came back to the computer there was one that stood out and it is one of my favorites I've ever taken.
It was the best combination of monumental effort, great discomfort, perfect foggy sunrise light, and just pure luck.
Unfortunately, people like me who use advanced sculpting light techniques are getting accused of using AI more and more. Not really sure what to do about it—other than show the 30 awful photos it took to get the good one.
My 80s sunglasses photo and spoon photo get called out the most.
But it's just good old fashioned gradient lighting which has been used in product photography since the days of film.
Most of my photos with artificial light added would be considered "unmotivated lighting." I think that is the term you were looking for.
The short explanation is that motivated lighting always has a logical source. Like the sun or a window or a lamp off to the side.
That doesn't mean there are no lighting shenanigans used.
The overhead office-style fluorescent lights depicted in this scene were actually powerful diffused light bars that were much closer to the actors. They replaced the ceiling in post with more traiditioinal looking lights. So the lighting was still very crafted—but it has a logic and realism that doesn't set off alarm bells in your brain saying, "Where is the light coming from?"
Unmotivated lighting is the opposite. It's crafted, artificial light that doesn't need to make sense. It just has to achieve the aesthetic goal of the artist.
All studio lighting is unmotivated. I just re-edited this old photo of my dad.
There is no room in the world where he could have sat down and had perfectly sculpted light hitting his face. I intentionally directed the light to accentuate his features and capture the best, most idealized version of what he looked like.
Coincidentally I just wrote a post about motivated lighting in films.
💬 20 🔁 208 ❤️ 349 · First, thank you to everyone who is nerding out with me about motivated lighting. I love that I can have these convers
Weirdly, I expressed a preference for motivated lighting in movies with a realism-based aesthetic and a lot of people disagreed. They said that the lighting comes from the same place as the music and that you just have to suspend your disbelief.
(Personally I think that is a bad analogy because music is *very* motivated by the emotional vibe. I would say unmotivated lighting in movies comes from the same place as women's apocalypse makeup.)
But I *love* unmotivated lighting in still photography. I love crafting an image and creating it in a fantasy realm where perfect, beautiful, sculpting light can come from anywhere. I want the most idyllic lighting possible.
It's the only way I could make fingernail clippers look beautiful.
And now people are saying unmotivated lighting looks like AI or CGI and isn't authentic. Even though this aesthetic was created before computers were invented and the tools of post-capture manipulation were done in a darkroom.
I'm fairly certain this is because AI does not have a great understanding of motivated lighting. It never thinks about where the light is coming from so it almost always creates images where the lighting comes from a fantasy realm. And now people are heavily associating unmotivated lighting with AI, even if it is a subconscious observation.
I think at this point in time, people are yearning for authenticity. We know so much of our imagery is heavily manipulated for nefarious purposes. Beauty advertising with retouched skin like porcelain dolls and liquified torsos that don't leave space for vital organs. Every fast food ad shows the perfect juicy hamburger because they paid a food stylist $500/hour to perfectly cook and arrange things.
But fast food workers are not food stylists and your burger isn't going to have perfect lettuce and a non-smooshed bun.
(Before you reply with urban legends about food styling, they don't use fake materials. They are required to use the actual ingredients. Those myths came from movie prop masters who needed to maintain the look of food during hours of shooting.)
I think AI just turned our uncomfortable relationship with unrealistic imagery up to 11.
It's a little depressing for me because I love to use light as my artistic medium. I say I am a photographer, but my passion is more focused on lighting.
And I often incorporate my other passion, which is image manipulation. I sometimes add another layer of unreality to my images by artistically editing them.
This is days of work.
I worked very hard for the in-camera image. Dragging a heavy chair and lighting equipment into a field on a hot summer day was not easy for me.
But I also worked very hard on the edit. The RAW file is overexposed, but once I corrected that, the lighting on him and the grass is actually what I captured. I hid a flash in the lampshade and lit him with my big 7 foot umbrella off to the right.
I could have shot this at night, but my area has so much light pollution, I would never have achieved the sky I wanted in my head. So I took the photo knowing I'd replace the sky later.
I like crafting images. I like picturing something in my head and then trying to manifest it in a photo.
I get why people are starting to prefer more natural looking images. I understand why they are currently preferring everything to be captured as it was in the moment. I know why they disparage the amazing work of CG artists and demand that every movie use only practical effects.
When everything is fake, a small dose of reality feels special.
But I see my photography more like a drawing or a painting. Light is my paintbrush and I am just trying to manifest my imagination into an image. I don't claim I don't use artificial light. I never say anything is "straight out of camera." I am very open about my use of Photoshop. If I were able to leave my house and go to more beautiful places, perhaps I would take a more motivated approach.
I mean, I love when the world is just beautiful all on its own and all I have to do is competently pick settings on my camera.
But I enjoy my artistic process and while some of my images may not be realistic, I think my artistry is always authentic.
I don't need every person to like every one of my photos. But when I work hard on a photo and there is clear talent and skill involved, I'm hoping people will still acknowledge that. I hope they will respect the effort and artistry involved.
I didn't enjoy the show Breaking Bad. I disliked all of the characters and the story just depressed me more and more as I watched it. But I still think it is an amazing show created by talented artists. I can acknowledge the monumental artistic achievement even if it wasn't my cup of tea.
ok northies this is it. these last five days to the solstice are a motherfucker. everything feels dark and hopeless because the sun's fucked off. but you MUST. i cannot stress enough you MUST hang on until the 21st. the light will come back
So it’s Flu Season again, and this recipe for Tea To Fix What Ails You was given to me by a Christian friend, and I’ve taken to calling it JESUS TEA due to it’s miraculous properties. Even though it, technically, contains no tea. This tea is as caffinie-free as anything processed in a US plant can get, but be sure to check the provenance and all ingredients in case of allergies.
You will Need:
A Bigass Pot, becuase this is something you make in large quantities
working stovetop
those lil cloth sachets you use for wassail/empty teabags/those lil reuseable loose-leaf tea steepers.
Recipe:
about a quart of water
1 cup apple cider
about half a lemon’s worth of juice
a shitwhack of honey- try to get as local as possible and generally the less-processed the better if you want to build a resistance to local allergens. If you have allergy concerns or don’t like the taste of honey, go ahead and use more processed stuff/another sweetener instead.
three tablespoons/three bags chamomile tea
three tablespoons/three bags rooibos tea
teaspoon crushed cloves
1 cinnamon stick (more if you like it spicier)
¼ tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cayenne or white pepper
Bring water to a simmer in the pot. Add the chamomile, rooibos and spices to steep about 4-5 minutes or longer if you like tea-flavored tar which given you have the flu you probably do. Add Cider, Lemon Juice and Honey until dissolved. Drink all of this in the course of an hour to stay hydrated, make more pots as needed or until you pass out.
FOR MAXIMUM EFFECTIVENESS: gargle warm salt water first for as long as you can, it’ll break up the mucus in your throat and soothe the soreness.
This stuff is hecking delicious, and my dad claims it cured his cold. I’ve taken to drinking it just because it tastes good! Thank you for sharing! :D I also found that you can freeze this stuff in convenient single serving sizes, ready to be heated in the microwave when you don’t have enough spoons to make it fresh. Granted fresh is usually best for most food and drinks, but it’s still good.
I also calculated a single serving version, which I’m putting here in case anyone wants to make it that way:
1 cup hot water
¼ cup apple cider (or more, I prefer 1/3 cup)
1 tbsp honey (or more, to taste)
a dash of lemon juice
½ tsp spice mixture
1 ½ tbsp tea mixture
Mix the spices together in one container, and mix the two kinds of tea together in another. Measure out of these the above amounts. (Don’t try to store the two things together, the spices will sink to the bottom and you won’t get the right measurements.)
Use a tea infuser/tea bag/cheesecloth/whatever to keep the herb bits from floating off into your drink. Steep for the usual 4-5 minutes, then add the cider, honey, and lemon.
Side note: ground cloves is cheaper for me so I use ½ tsp of that instead of 1 of whole. I also like cinnamon a lot so I use ¼ tsp ground cinnamon instead of a stick (also sticks are really expensive here). If you use a stick, break it into little pieces. The downside of ground cinnamon is that it kind of congeals if you don’t stir it periodically, so keep a spoon handy as you drink.
Since people have been asking for this (I guess the flu/common cold is going around agian), have it again, NOW WITH SINGLE SERVING SIZE, THANK YOU @snowfox102 for doing the math for me!
Among many other Talents, my family is good at insults. Please enjoy:
”We promise to return Cousin Scott in as many pieces as we receive him.”
“…Pieces, Plural?”
“Scott, his artifical leg, and the wee peanut rattling around his skull that he uses for a brain.”
“You’re going to make some some future paleontologist very famous when they discover your solid-bone skull.”
“Professor Ingram has left for the University of Lousiana’s Psych department, thereby raising the average IQ of both departments.”
“Can you believe someone started a rumor that I slept my way to the top?”
“No way. You’re nowhere near to the top.”
“You are my sister and I love you but I’m pretty sure if I were to shout directly into your ear canal you’d echo.”
“Some things ferment and improve with age- Wine and Cheese for instance. You’ve just decomposed.”
“Dense doesn’t begin to cover it. People who get close to him get trapped in his Event Horizon.”
“Some people have a devil on thier shoulder that whispers temptations to them. Yours is bellowing that that was over the line.”
“I won’t deny that you have hidden depths, but they’re less like the potentially levithan-filled ocean and more like the secret compartment in the dryer where the socks get lost.”
“I can’t come to your birthday Nina. I’ve scheduled a root canal that day specifically so I wouldn’t have to.”
“She describes her ancestry and it sounds like a fancy cheese platter but in person she’s velveeta.”
“Your inner machinations are a rotating pie display.”
“He’s got a bright future as a redundant middle manager in Hell.”
Grandmother, upon seeing the scandalously tight pants and Veneral dancing of the 80′s: “That’s an awful lot of advertisement for not much product.”
“Why do you always talk like you’re giving a presentation to a bunch of kindergartners?”
“I think it’s important to adjust your means of communication the the auidence present.”
“Aposematism. An intersting fashion choice.”
In reference to a loud neighbor: “Does he have any idea what time it is?”
“That would require a degree of cognition that is capable of abstract reasoning. I don’t think Norm understands pants.”
“You might have better luck with romance if you tried dating within your own Genus.”
“That’s a rude thing to say about Ricky!”
“I’d call him one of the Great Apes but that involves attatching a superlative to his name.”
“Truly, you are the astigmatism of your father’s eye.”
“Look at you! All feathers like a half-plucked moldering theater boa and a hiss like a deflating bicycle! To think that your ancestors would have sparred with the likes of T-Rex! Away from me, Lesser goose of Greater Ganders! Go slather yourself in herbs and sit under a broiler you useless excuse of an herbivore!” (Yes, directed at a Canada Goose. Yes, IT WORKED).
“Glenn, if the comapny really wanted someone to repeat what everyone else said in a more annoying way, they’d hire a parakeet.”
“How did you like the Movie?”
“Ten out of Ten, best nap I’ve had in weeks.”
“You are the persistent hemorrhoids on the backside of humanity.”
“They say art is whatever you can get away with, but the artist clearly thinks they’ve pulled off a baffling hesit when they’re barely managed a back-alley mugging.”
“All the Animals in the world to emulate, and she picks a Tick.”
(If you’ve enjoyed these please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or PayPal, or if you want the stories behind some of these, you can pre-order my book and get exculsive content on my Patreon! Thank you!)
The year is 2009, the place is the University of Hawai'i at Manoa in Honolulu, and I am recovering from a still-undiagnosed disease that left me with a 100+ degree for over three weeks, extreme weight loss and permanent Brain Damage. I have signed up for an introductory Art History class because I need an additional Humanities credit.
It's called "The History and Philosophy of the Japanese Tea Ceremony", and for a class I can only sort of remember, it stands out.
So I'm in professor Roberts' Japanese Tea Ceremony class, looking and feeling like death warmed over, but I'm genuinely interested in the subject matter and show up to every class because I have nothing better to do, and ask questions and turn in my homework, even if neither are particularly coherent at times, and rapidly become his favorite student. The thing I learned in public school was how to show up to events even if I don't want to, analyze tests and other written materials for patterns and charm educators by holding up my end of a conversation, skills that have served me in the modern world far more than learning actual course content would have.
The Tea Ceremony, historically, takes a good month to prepare and the entire evening to carry out- the guest list is curated to create social bonds and intellectual stimulation alike, a poem is composed for the season, and a seasonal flower arrangement created to decorate the space. When the guests arrive, they must all crawl through a small door to enter the tea garden, regardless of profession or rank. Hands are ritually washed in spring water, and there is a slow processional walk through the garden, to admire the artistry of the landscaping, and the composition of seasonal elements to create this particular night of beauty. The entire ceremony is about appreciating both the joy of existing right now, in this time and place, and the unification of the self and the universe and the endless cycles of nature.
The guests arrive at the tea house and meet the Tea Master, who will be making the Matcha that evening. The guests are seated in particular order, the Most Revered Guest- sometimes a high-ranking official, sometimes a visiting scholar or artist- is seated closest to the Tea Master. The Poem is read aloud. The Flowers are admired. The tools for making the Matcha are taken out, examined as objects of art, and their history told. The matcha powder itself is taken out- the case examined, the cultivation of the tea discussed, and only then does the Tea Master make the Tea.
Matcha is not brewed- it's a fine powder made of crushed green tea leaves, and the powder is whisked together with not-quite-boiling water in a bowl to create a much more substantial and flavorful drink. This drink is presented to the Most Revered Guest first, who is expected to take a sip and, in a moment of Zen spiritual clarity, comment on its flavor and how all the elements of the tea, art, garden and season all complement each other, and perhaps offer some sort of philosophical statement.
At least,
That's how it's supposed to go.
About a month before the spring semester is over, Professor Roberts announces that he has a surprise for his class- a good friend of his, a Professional Tea Master, will be visiting Hawai'i, and has agreed to perform a Tea Ceremony for our class! I am very excited. The other 10 people in class are varying levels of amiably confused to distressed by having to go to An Event (TM) for a grade, but agree. One of my classmates, an astrology hoe named Jessica, pointed out that with the 11 students, Professor Roberts, and the Tea Master, there will be 13 people present, which is basically inviting disaster.
"Jessica." Sighed Professor Roberts. "It's a Tea Ceremony. What disaster could happen?"
Despite Jessica's misgivings, Preparations for the ceremony went on. We learned about Ikebana while deciding on the Ceremonial Bouquet and tried our hands at it with what Professor Robert could get at the grocery store for $12. We learned about calligraphy and different types of poetic compositions while making the Seasonal Poem, and stain the hell out of the classroom carpet learning the brush strokes. We learn about different types of Matcha Bowl sculpting and glazing and we are not allowed to touch the demonstration bowls or the kiln because Professor Roberts was beginning to suspect that some of his students (me) were suffering from coordination issues. I apply myself with zeal, if not necessarily talent. I was, at the time, an Art Major, but my professors in the art department had been grading me on a secret "this bitch almost died last semester and is re-learning how to hold a pencil" curve, and boy howdy did I stumble and break leaves and splatter ink like it.
Despite my ongoing unmonitored recovery, Professor Roberts viewed my enthusiastic class participation with rose-colored glasses, and about a week before the ceremony we had a class where he brought out the used Kimonos and Obi and other forms of japanese dress he'd borrowed from the theater department so that we would be traditionally dressed(ish) and experience the ceremony authentically(ish). While people were trying on clothes to see what would fit, he took me aside and told me he wanted me to be in the position of Most Revered Guest, the person who makes the zen statement upon which the entire event hinges.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" I asked.
"You're the only person who doesn't fall asleep in class and you talked about how the flowers stagger their blooms to not compete for the bees- you're perfectly engaged and conscious of the seasons!" He said, blindly. "You will need different shoes though." He indicated my flip-flops. "I won't make you learn how to walk in Geta, but nothing with Heels. Ballet flats are fine."
"...These are the only shoes I own." I said.
Professor Roberts stared at me.
"-I used to have a pair of sneakers but I think a homeless guy stole them while I was at the beach last month."
"What?" Roberts blinked.
"He probably needed them more than I do. I'll see if I can borrow some flats."
"...I don't think I've ever met a woman with less than 10 pairs of shoes." Said Roberts.
"I'm not a woman, I'm and undergrad." I said, still three years away from learning the term 'Nonbinary'. "Those are Jordan's only pair of shorts, you know." I pointed at my classmate, who had been wearing the one (1) pair of basketball shorts for the entire semester.
"I WASH THEM." Jordan shouted defensively, wearing the longest Men's Kinmo the theater department had, which barely came down to the top of his calves.
"Oh God." Said Roberts, a horrifying new world opening up to him like a tub of Expired sour cream.
*
It was the day of the Ceremony.
The Seasonal Theme we'd worked on was "The Turn Of Summer", and the weather was complying maliciously.
Normally, Tea Ceremonies are scheduled for the more temperate evening, but due to the school needing to host something in the adjoining cultural center later, we could only use the Tea Garden in the middle of the afternoon, and the summer sun was a sweltering 98 degrees and a similar level of Humidity. The Camelias were melting.
Where Jordan had difficulty finding a Kimono that suited his ent-like proportions, I'd had the opposite problem and the only Kimono short enough to not trip my Hobbit-sized self was a Child’s size. My roommate had helped me get into the Kimono and Obi before the ceremony, and leant me a pair of her Ballet Flats, but we discovered an issue- this Kimono was designed for a flat-chested prepubescent youth, and even though I barely scraped 5'0", I had the robust proportions of an Irish Peasant, and the only way to avoid displaying a frankly offensive amount of cleavage was to use the widest Obi we could find and sort of tuck my boobs into it.
"Hm" I said. "Kind of hard to breathe."
"Yeah, but you're sitting for most of it, right? It can't last more than an hour, so just like, shuffle and don't talk much?" She suggested.
To her credit, the first forty-five minutes of the ceremony only involved shuffling through the gardens and not talking while the Tea Master lectured us on some of the finer points of the garden's design.
But then we got to the Tea House- a small structure only barely able to accommodate the 13 of us, which was in the shade but hotter than the outside because of the roaring fire in the middle of the room, where the water for the Matcha was boiling. The room was surrounded by a narrow sort of porch, part of which hung over the Koi pond, where several massively overfed carp blurbled expectantly for treats at the arrival of humans. I sat down, legs folded under me like Professor Roberts had insisted, and realized that this pushed the Obi UP, and now my rib cage was being compressed in all directions.
I tried to pay attention to the rest of the ceremony, but two and a half hours is an awfully long time to listen about lecturers you've already heard when your body is undergoing a sort of internal horserace to see if the heatstroke, sciatica pain and numbness, allergies or suffocation-by-compression will cause you to pass out first. My legs had gone numb below the knee by the time we were done with the flower arrangement. My entire legs were numb before we were done with the Poem. By the time the Tea Utensils came out, I was seeing spots of colored light in my vision and could only breathe if I focused on it very, very hard.
But! The ceremony was genuinely interesting! and Professor Roberts was counting on me! So I did my best not to sway or throw up from watching the Tea Master whisk the Matcha, and dutifully took the bowl with a pair of hands that felt like slabs of ham that I was attempting to puppet from another dimension, and took a sip.
They say that Smell and Taste are far more closely connected to the emotional centers of the brain than any other sense, and I believe it because the instant I inhaled both the grassy, powdery smell, and tasted the moderately viscous bubbly liquid, I experienced an intense flashbulb memory back to a previous late May-
The Year was '98, the place was my elementary school art room, and we'd been using the seasonal hot weather to paint on a massive scale as the art dried quickly- each third-grader had been given a roll of butcher paper, a cheap brush, squirts of non-toxic paint and a water cup, and allowed to go hog-wild on our murals, and the rush of creative energy and the imminent sense of freedom as the semester drew to a close truly embodied the summer of youth, carefree but with an almost psychotic fervor, where lack of care was both freeing and dangerous as you lost track of your surroundings in the act of creation-
Which isn't a bad seasonal-philosophical connection statement to make, but the actual words that came out of my mouth were:
"Wow. This tastes exactly like paint."
The first sound I heard after the moment of silence was the cartoonishly loud gasp of horror from Professor Roberts, which was almost immediately drowned out by the thunderclap of laughter from the Tea Master, slapping his thighs and wiping tears from his face, unable to stop. I desperately tried to explain the connection between the fact I might be dying of heat stroke right now, and how I ended up drinking my paint water back in Mrs. Krantz's art class because back then I was also dying of heat stroke, but mostly ended up wheezing half-formed sentences as the rest of the class took sips and offered opinions varying between "Wow, that's thick. Like a Hot smoothie." and "Oh yeah, it tastes like summer. Like how a freshly-mowed lawn smells like summer." Professor Roberts slowly melted into a pile of shame, and the Tea Master slapped him on the back, still howling with laughter.
"They're honest! Nobody else will be honest! This is magnificent!" he wheezed.
Eventually, everyone had their taste, and the ceremony was concluded. The second the Tea Master had packed up his tools and stepped outside for a breath of fresh air, Professor Roberts was in my face.
"HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT?" he hissed, grabbing my arm and pulling me up. "GO APOLOGIZE RIGHT NOW!" he shoved me out onto the porch where the Tea Master was looking at the Koi, who had started bubble-begging aggressively again.
Except that my legs felt like blocks of wood that my pelvis was renting from another planet where legs hadn’t been invented yet, my vision was entirely static between the dehydration and lack of oxygen, and my vestibuar system had fucked off an hour ago, leaving me to stay upright by purely by the virtue of the over-tightened Obi. So instead of bowing and apologizing profusely like my professor expected, what I actually did was stumble out of the room, say something like "Hsdfkf" and topple head-first into the koi pond.
Fortunately, the impact of the bottom of the pond with the top of my skull activated a sort of last-resort emergency self preservation system and I inhaled with enough force to break the Obi-Jime and probably a couple ribs from the pain that hit both my sides like lightning. Unfortunately, the thing I was inhaling was fish-shit riddled Pond Water, so my emergency self-preservation system ordered an even harder Exhale.
The Tea Master, to his immense credit, had immediately jumped in after me, and pulled me upright just in time for me to forcibly exhale half a gallon of rancid pond water directly into his face, then start screaming. Screaming is an extremely appropriate reaction to have when injured, because it alerts everyone that you require medical attention, but is very unpleasant to experience from four inches away, which is probably why he then immediately dropped me.
Fortunately the pond wasn't very deep and this time I sat there, scream-gasping as my lungs reinflated, Koi fish burbling and sucking at me with tremendous excitement, until the EMT from the campus clinic arrived, a vanguard before the actual ambulance.
"Okay uh. You're bleeding." he said, cautiously wading into the pond.
I opened my eyes to find that I had apparently acquired a large and profusely bleeding head wound, which had activated some long-suppressed Shark Instincts in the Koi, which were eagerly gumming at the streams of blood and trying to suck on my forehead. "Good thing they don’t have teeth." I said in the distant bliss that only zen masters and people with serious head injuries get to experience.
"Do you want a towel?" he asked, helping me up.
"No, this is rather refreshing, actually." I said, still absolutely smashed on endorphins, Koi still enthusiastically swarming at my kneecaps.
"I mean like for your-" the EMT Gestured Vaguely at my torso.
I looked down and realized that not only had I broken the Obi-jime, the entire Obi had come undone and was floating several feet away, and I was only wearing the Kimono, fallen completely off my shoulders and was only being prevented from performing a full Lady Godiva by the valiant efforts of the safety pin my roommate had put in to keep it folded correctly while we figured out the Obi.
"Professor Roberts?" I stood up all the way, soaking wet, bleeding from my forehead with such force as to create actual streams of blood down my face, neck and chest, tits out, and addressed the poor man standing, white-faced on the deck above the pond. "I don't think I'm going to be in class on Monday-" I paused to fish a small Koi that had gotten trapped in the remains of the now-ruined Kimono, and tossed it back into the pond. "-Can I schedule a make-up exam for the Final?"
"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET IN THE AMBULANCE!" He screamed.
I was x-rayed for a skull fracture, but my lifelong membership to the Lactose Tolerance Club had protected me, and I happily texted my roommate to come pick me up as "They x-rayed my head and found nothing" while the doctor stitched part of my scalp back together.
The following morning, I discovered that Professor Roberts had graded my exam before I took it. 100%. Truly, the best way to get a good grade on your finals is to get a serious head injury.
So, Matcha is not a Tea, in my humble opinion.
Matcha is an Experience.
And sometimes that experience is drinking something almost exactly like paint, ruining an important cultural ceremony, traumatizing your professor, and introducing a bunch of fish to the taste of human flesh.
***
If this made you laugh, there are more funny stories on My Patreon, or you can help support me by tipping my Ko-Fi. Thank You.
