Plenty of Nothing

Wacky Line Ottawa

Hans Weiditz, Tree of Fools (c. 1525)

The February 26 Incident

Shigeru Mizuki's manga Showa: A History of Japan 1926-1939 is at once a history of Japan's pre-war military build-up and an account of Mizuki's own childhood during those years. When he focuses on his own childhood neighbourhood he uses the same cartoon versions of his family and schoolmates you saw in NonNonBa. But for historical events he relies on hand-drawn facsimiles of news photographs, some of which you can easily find via Google image search. The ones above relate to the February 26 Incident, a rebellion of part of the Japanese Army in 1936. The cartoons appear on pages 444, 436 and 433 of the manga.

House of Blues & Ribs

Daihatsu

2014 Daihatsu Hijet mini truck, from Genshiken chapter 97. Daihatsu is Japanese for "Great hat, Sue."

Fox Netsuke

The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco has netsuke too. This ivory fox has gradually achieved its fox colour over two or three centuries of use.

What's All This Then?

The Nick, Rue End Street. Source.

Morton host Alloa. As usual it's a must-win situation.

Morton have played 24 league games to date. Twelve remain including today's. So far Morton have accumulated only 16 points. If they play to a draw in each of their remaining matches they'll finish with 28 points, and almost certainly occupy tenth place and suffer relegation. If they win half their games and lose the other half, they'll finish with 34, possibly good enough for ninth place, with the chance to stay up via the Championship playoffs, if Cowden go into a spin. Twelve wins and they'll finish with 52 points, which might be good enough for a slot in the Premiership playoffs, but do not hold your breath.

Morton have not lost a game since January 4th. Alloa, currently in eighth place, have not won a game since December 14th. When they beat Morton.

[Alloa win 0 - 1. Cowdenbeath also win, so Morton are now 12 points out of ninth place.]

Yesterday Boulogne and Red Star made up their rained-out match. Red Star won 0 - 1.

The Japanese football season kicked off today with the playing of the Fuji Xerox Super Cup between J League champions Sanfrecce Hiroshima and Emperor's Cup winners Yokohama F Marinos. Hiroshima won 2 - 0.

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro in St. Louis

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, one of Japan's Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry, lived around the year 700 and is heavily represented in the first great Japanese anthology the Man'yōshū. This carving was done around the year 1600, and now resides in the Saint Louis Art Museum. Look how the grain of the wood suggests the folds of his robe.

Defending the Sampo

The Kalevala is the central body of Finnish myth. Elias Lönnrot assembled the epic poem from traditional songs in the 1830s and 40s and it rapidly became the core text of nineteenth-century Finnish nationalism. It inspired Finnish artists including the composer Jean Sibelius, and painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela who in the 1890s created many of the most famous images associated with the poem. Sammon puolustrus (The Defense of the Sampo) was painted in 1896 and now resides in the Turku Art Museum. The Sampo is not the ship but the cargo lashed down in the lower right corner. The poem is not that clear about what the object is exactly, beyond a kind of all-purpose mill. I think it's a replicator myself.

Barky