Today is...yard-sale day. The front yard has been filled with complete strangers since 7:30 AM, and I still have to go to work at 3:00. Even so, we've apparently sold a lot of things, which is all the better for us, right? I folded seventeen cranes, four luna moths, and two tigerwing butterflies to sell, both to get some more money for textbooks and to note the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. (The moths and the butterflies are there as a technical accomplishment, since they were designed by the astounding Michael G. LaFosse. Hopefully I'll be able to take pictures, should they not sell by the end of the day.)


I'm surprised that no one on my friends list brought this up.

I made a placard explaining the symbolism associated with the crane, as well as Sadako's story. I wish that more attention was given to the atomic bombings here in the United States; there was a brief A.P. article in my local newspaper about the memorial service held in Hiroshima on Thursday, but that was about it. Back in grade school, we never read about the fire-bombing of Japanese cities, or the destruction of Dresden, or the rape of Nanking, or the worsening condition of the zeks held in the labor camps in the Soviet Union--none of that. The only atrocity of the Second World War we read about at length was the Holocaust.

Here would be the typical line about how we have to learn from the past in order to not repeat our mistakes, which has been repeated and ignored time and again. Let me repeat it again, because it cannot be repeated enough: we have to learn from the past in order to not repeat our mistakes. It's beyond frustrating to be stuck in a powerless position and watch the same bloodshed happen over and over again, with only the agressors, the victims, and the means changing.

It's a strange thing, but I might not have been born were it not for the atomic bombs. My grandfather was slated to be part of Operation Downfall, and (if the casualties were as high as historians say they would have been) he very likely would have been killed. It's disturbing to think of it in such terms--if X had happened, these people would have lived and these people wouldn't, if Y had happened--since that's beyond human control. I can't change what happened sixty-four years ago; I can't say that my life is worth more or less than that of any other human being. Nobody can. In fact, this whole thing is bordering on arrogance from me.

The lesson here would be that war is senseless and cruel no matter who suffers from it--that, no matter what, someone will be harmed by it.

I apologize if I overstepped my bounds.




I submitted this several days ago, but I've only just gotten enough free time to post it on my journal. Take a look at the whole thing--I'm very pleased with the way it turned out! (I'm thinking of altering it so as to make a new header out of it, but I've had the current one up for only three months.)



I also submitted some sketches of the costume's details, which admittedly aren't all that detailed. (I was going to include a Magical Fan/Magical Man pun with Clow, but I couldn't fit him in.) As I wrote before, the cape and the skirt are supposed to resemble both auspicious mists (which show up frequently in Journey to the West) and banners; the drape of the red cloth on around Sakura's neck is supposed to look like the kerchiefs worn by Song Dynasty soldiers. The calf-length boots are also taken from Song Dynasty armor (in a very vague way), with the exception of the toes and the tassels, which are...just supposed to look cool. Th-that deflated the whole thing. Moving on, the shoulder pads and the headpiece resemble clouds (from which the divine winds blow!); the headpiece itself is derived from the costumes worn by performers in the Beijing opera. It's much more simplified, though--do you think I should have added some rooster feathers, or something equally dramatic?

Finally, Sakura's pose is very similar to the poses of the noble workers in old communist propaganda. Bonus points if you can sing the Internationale from memory!