Mother Nature is a royalist bitch. She tries to kill you even if you try to embrace her, and its only mankind's mystical musings that assumes a warm embrace of this coldhearted killer is appreciated.
Alan Weiss
Last Tuesday night, I had the interesting, frustrating, enlightening experience of training in a few pieces of modern armor. My teacher, Dale Seago, had some observations which he wrote up on MartialTalk.com. The pics of him in armor were taken by me with my Olympus E-1; the other pics were taken by someone else with their camera.
I'd love to find an affordable set of well-constructed, wearable, Warring States Period yoroi I could train in, but the most popular set of modern-made gear, Hanwei's "Nobunaga" style armor, has gotten reviews which pretty much sum up to "good basic craftsmanship, very poorly conceived & ahistorical design." Still looking.
I get the occasional numb-nut. They say, "I can see how you can shoot ugly wild boars, but not a beautiful deer." Oh, a little more Hitlerism is just what we need. This can live and this can die according to my whims. Eat me, you fuck! Here's the truth so you can print it in bold, capital red letters: The cuter the critter, the sweeter the meat.
Ted Nugent
Interview in April 2004 Maxim magazine, p104
For a martial art to be a martial art, rather than some other form of physical expression (some other "art" entirely), its focus must remain on fighting. A truly accomplished warrior may renounce violence -- but only his or her mastery of violence makes this possible. If the style or system you study leaves you unable to defend yourself in a realistic self-defense scenario, it may indeed be an art -- but it is not martial at all. Its practitioners delude themselves if they believe that it is.
In the same vein, a martial art or martial artist whose attitude towards weapons is one of contempt, mistrust, fear, or condescension tells you volumes about its, his, or her "martialism." Weapons are force multipliers -- tools that perform the same function as hammers, levers, and pliers in that they make it easier to accomplish a specific task. As the purpose of a martial art is to deliver force against another human or group of humans, only the most ignorant of martial artists would dismiss or reject tools that make performing this task more efficient and less risky. There is no such thing as an immoral tool. There are only immoral tool users.
My Bujinkan teacher Dale Seago mentioned this a few days ago:
Some VERY good pages on Japanese armor which give a clearer understanding of why armored fighting methods are the way they are; also sections on historic Japanese clothing & accessories, the design and layout of Japanese estates during the Heian period, etc.
For those with a bent toward Humphreyesque "cultural detective work", there's an essay on "Rape as the First Act of Romance in Heian Japan" which makes it pretty clear that the feudal Japanese viewed some things quite differently from the way we do in our society today... (Whaddaya mean I should wait 'til the 3rd date?!?)
People who will not take the trouble to raise children should not have them.
Robert A. Heinlein
Podkayne of Mars
A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn.
Rowan Atkinson
I'm an 'ivory tower' liberal. That means when I see a hungry person half-way round the world I send money, but when I see one at my door I call the police.
Tom Lehrer
If you really believe you can compensate for a lack of skill or talent by doubling your efforts, there is no end to what you cannot do.
Stephen Carville
Today after work I headed up for Thursday night Bujinkan training (the weekly outdoor session, which I'd been missing until recently due to school), and had a great time tonight. Before heading to San Francisco, I did a quick search for late night coffee shops with free wireless internet access, located within a reasonable drive of the training park, and found the Samovar Tea Lounge in the Castro/Mission district.
I'm sitting there right now, having "Russian High Tea" way too late in the day. Service includes all-you-can drink high-octane self-serve tea from - you guessed it - a samovar: "dilute to taste" is the operative term. This place is genuinely cool, and I highly recommend it.
About the "just because I can" thing: an acquaintance of mine, Marc Stiegler, once wrote in one of his novels that it's vitally important to maintain a childlike sense of wonder about the world. Here I am, sitting in a friendly place, an oasis of light in the darkness, warmth against the wind, music from the walls, and good food I would never have thought of making myself, talking to people in other cities on a 4-pound device that I use to bring me money... life is a good thing.
Monica, you can take my blog off the "Missing in Action" list on your blogroll: I'm out of school for three weeks, concentrating on work but taking a few minutes a day to blog.
Speaking of school, the last few weeks of organic chemistry were split between the standard track material (in this case reactions of alkynes) and a series of lectures on NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) in depth. When I return to school, our department's new NMR machines will be in place, so this preparation is essential to actually using these machines productively. I'm really looking forward to adding NMR to my toolkit.
Walking past a newsstand near my office yesterday, I saw the banner headline "Tube Bosses Buy Parts on eBay". The accompanying story told us, in faintly mocking tones, how engineers working on the London Underground system have resorted to using the online auction firm because the parts they need are so old that they cannot get the pieces they need from regular stock.
Now it may at first appear a terrible thing that our metro systems are so old that the folk running them have to resort to an online auction set up by those vulgar American geeks from their Silicon Valley offices to get the stuff they need. But (drums roll!) I have a certain admiration for the Tube staff who had the entrepreneurial savvy to make use of the amazingly successful eBay platform. If the power of the internet can make my journey to work a bit smoother, I ain't complaining.
Yesterday, I attended Dale Seago's "Return from Japan" seminar in San Francisco. I'm reminded that my friend Monica attended a Bujinkan seminar in London, and had some good things to say about her training experience.
All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity
James Fenimore Cooper
