It’s been a few weeks since I talked about my friend who re-sparked my interest in magic. It seems it is still within my interest.
About a week after my friend–let’s call him Stanley–taught me the trick I have been trying to get him to show me, he decided I should learn a simple manipulation.
Ok, let’s cover manipulation first. Manipulation with cards is when the entertainer makes cards dance in his hands to the appreciation of his audience. Usually this manipulation is paired with magic tricks. Entertainers have been using the combination of manipulation and magic in different venues for years. You’ve all seen it, here is an example of a card manipulation performance:
I am not working on anything so fancy. I am working on basics… though it is a little fancier in some ways.
Stanley did the one thing that would insure I would learn manipulation though he didn’t know it at the time. While we were talking and after I handed the cards to him again, he showed me a simple trick then put cards into my hands and made me try it. If you don’t get what it was that did it, it was the making me try it part.
I didn’t get the trick down at first, but I caught on fast and the next day found me doing that trick with both hands while waiting in a subway station. Stanley didn’t know it at the time, but he had just started something that would last a while.*
When I was at work the next day, my lunch break consisted of searching for Card Manipulations and basic magic tricks. What I found was pretty interesting. I saved a small playlist of basic flourishes and a few fancy card manipulations.
The next time Stanley and I met up, he was shocked and amazed by the–admittedly minor–progress I had made. It was hard work for me. I had recent slammed my right hand into a metal pole and moving the fingers in such elaborate ways forced it to work in ways it wasn’t ready to endure. I was stubborn. There were a few things I couldn’t really capture, so I handed the deck off to Stanley who showed me what I was missing and gave me a challenge to complete.
The time after that, my cards, which were regular paper cards and not actual professional playing cards, were dull around the edges and the paper wasn’t snapping and basically they got limp. I hadn’t completed the challenge yet and he was pressed to show anything useful with the current deck. It was my Birthday too, so I didn’t push. I resolved to get something useful.
The next day was an early day because of a holiday. I contacted Stanley to find out if he would be available to go to his suggested magic shop with me and we went. Sadly I didn’t have much in the way of cash or money since payday was still around the corner, but I did have enough to buy a deck of cards. We had some time, so I suggested visiting the other store I had found on a Google search. He had never been there and it was close. We went.
He nabbed my new deck of cards (It wasn’t hard, I was offering!) and tutored me in a few things as we walked through early evening crowds. It made the walk way interesting. The second shop was more visually stunning with other street magic and entertainment, such as juggling, stupid gross tricks, like plastic dog pooh, and normal real magic supplies. I decided there was nothing for me there and ended up buying us both a set of cards. Which were pulled out and manipulated on the trip back the way we had come.
I don’t know if he thought I was serious or not. I didn’t even know if I was. I ended up with two decks of cards: Ellusionist’s Arcane (white) and Theory11′s Guardians. Both caught my attention and imagination, but I decided the Guardians were more hearty and able to stand up to frequent use.
Each day during the holiday weekend, I pulled out the cards and practiced what I was learning. It was something to do and something I found easy enough to do on subway platforms and sitting on the trains. By the time Stanley met me again, only four days by my count, my deck was already looking ragged and used. My pocket was really hard on the poor things. In a week they looked used, in two weeks they looked well used. It was getting a little hard to cut the cards in my new fancy way without dropping them on the ground.
A few easy weeks after Stanley first went with me to the store, I handed him my well used deck. Unbelievably, once he warmed up a little and dropped cards a few times, he flawlessly performed tricks with the ragged card. Another lesson, even bad cards can entertain. Not long later, the outer box fell apart and that was the death of the rest of the cards as I used my pocket and several cards got ruined. I was playing without a full deck of cards. It was only a month or so of life.
To my amazement, this card manipulation thing has lasted a long time. Stanley knew I was serious when we both stepped on a train and while we were talking, I pulled out the cards and started warming up.
Am I any good? Not yet. My fingers don’t move smoothly and still drop a lot, but the manipulation is helping that smashed hand and I am at the point where I am getting bored with what I know already. In my experience now is the most crucial time. If I can get past the boredom and keep up with the basics, it will be all the better as I try to learn more.
I’ve had a few stumbles and I have a few issues I need to address, but that will have to be in another post. I would like to write more about Magic and manipulation of cards and coins, but I need to know what people would like to know. Please comment and let me know what you want to know, or comment with suggestions, websites, books or videos that you used to help you.
===================================== *The trick he taught me was a simple one-handed cut called The Charlier Cut. There are numerous videos out there that contain the Charlier, but all of the vids dedicated to it are tutorials. Grab a pack of playing cards, don’t worry if it is incomplete, and do the tutorial along with the video… perhaps I can be your own personal Stanley!
Posted by niaskywalk on Jul 2, 2010 in Uncategorized
I enjoy costuming though I don’t usually have time to build costumes as I would want to. This time, I have an old Halloween story to share.
Why Halloween? I was rumaging through some old notes and I wanted to eliminate some papers and transfer it to digital. I happen to like this story, which I wrote long hand and dumped in my files.
Each Halloween, my father’s office had a themed party as many do. One year, my father was one of the 102 Dalmations and he and his department paraded for fellow office workers to “Who Let the Dog Out?” Another year, they did the Addams’ Family and my father did and uncanny imitation of ‘Uncle Fester’. My father then decided in 2004 to dress as a famous and popular singer.
He spent a couple weeks putting the costume together in his free time. He didn’t do any sewing or anything, but he did go shopping and searching for the correct components. On night before the day of the event, he refrained assistance and put he costume together for the first time. I was busy at the time and didn’t realise what he was doing until he walked into the room and made me do a doubletake. The black wig was long and shagy, the black makeup was actually pretty precise for someone who doesn’t do make up and the whole outfit was amazing. He got compliments and suggestions from us and then set it up for the next day.
I didn’t see him as he went out the door to get to work. When he returned for the night, he brought with him a few interesting stories. He won in two categories: Best Original and ‘Most Like…’ in addition, a second costume he bought and loaned to a co-worker won Most Silly. Of course, I was not really surprise the giant Whoopie Cushion would win that.
My father told how he wore his costume to work and entered the building complete with gait and movements of Ozzy Osbourne. A man in the office approached my father and asked, “Was that you crossing the parking lot?” My father answered in the affirmative and the co-worker replied, “Oh Good! I was afraid old Ozzy was here to collect his debt!”
When the presentation time arrived, he entered the floor with Snow White on his arm. As he reached the center of the room, he stopped and looked at Snow White with a slightly confused look, “Uh… uh… uh… .Sharon?!” he asked, affecting the speech of his character. He caused a riot of laughter from all in the room, including his companion. My father’s Ozzy Osbourne was a hit that lasts to this day. The resemblence is a bit uncanny and each time he dresses as Ozzy for Halloween, I am taken aback.
Recently, he showed me his work ID and it sent me into howls of laughter, that I actually ended up on the floor laughing. For whatever reason, he was allowed to use his Ozzy photo as his official ID.
Do you have any silly costuming stories to share? Post a comment and let me know.
Posted by niaskywalk on Jun 28, 2010 in Uncategorized
I like to cook. I don’t make many actual recipes, but I do like to play with a few things.
Lately, my favorite kind of cooking starts with olive oil and spices in the frying pan. Eggs? Sauteed onions (and other available veggies) and herbs with eggs scrambled on top. Rice? Sauteed onions, garlic (and other available veggies), spices and rice. Delicious. Pasta? Sauteed onions, garlic, italian spices, other available veggies, then tomato paste/sauce on top… on top of pasta. Chicken breast? Sauteed onions, garlic, spices… and then in goes the chicken breast with vinegar and other interesting spices. Yes, and I do have sauteed onions, usually with sauteed mushrooms, all on their own as a topping or addition to things like potatoes, roasts and rotisserie chickens.
Basically, if you walk in when I am sauteeing something, you never know where its gonna go and I love starting things that way.
I have a wonderful cookbook called ‘Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone” (Broadway Books, 9780767921220). I am nowhere near a vegetarian, but the tips and recipes offered in this cookbook are well worth the lack of meat. Actually, there are many recipes that either go extremely well with a meat dish or can be easily modified with meat. The best part of this book is how it is organized. The author chooses a vegetable type, tells you what it is, what it is good for, how to clean, store and cook with it, and then continues to give a range of recipes from basic to complex with each vegetable as a central feature. I have been introduced to a few exotic vegetables and given a load of information about veggies I thought I knew already. This book has taught me how to sautee well and how to make soups and dips and pancakes. In addition to veggies, there is also information about grains and pastas as well. The author offers tips and serving suggestions in the margins, as well as suggested substitutions. There are also beautiful full color photos of some entrees and sides as well.
My copy of the book is always out, I have a few bookmarks at favorite parts and it is starting to look well used. I used to follow a different recipe for pancakes, but once I tried the suggested recipe, I will never go to another. They are delicious as all get-out. When I have a random ingredient and I am wondering what to do with it, I will look it up in this book and more often than not get an inspiration from the preparation section if not an actual recipe I can use at the moment.
If you like cooking and don’t want to look through a hundred different books for tips, tricks and recipes, this book would be an excellent resource for cooking, cleaning, preparing, and storing fruits, vegetables, grains, breads, cereals and condiments of all makes and kinds. When they say Cooking for Everyone, I do believe they really mean it.
If there is one guarantee about long trips in subway cars in the city, its that you will be sketched into the art book of one artist or another eventually.
I was waiting for a train to Brooklyn. Since I was at the terminal end, I could wait a while in the train before it actually leaves. It was late at night, it had been a long day at work so I had sat myself in a seat near a rail and so I can watch the time if I wanted and I just sat there. I was comfortable, holding onto my oversized backpack and leaning my head on the wall alternately watching the time and semi-snoozing. When they opened all the doors to admit people easier, I opened my eyes again and realised my neck was stiff, so I switched positions so my head was on the rail which gave me a perfect view of the artist boarding the train and sitting across from me.
How did I know the guy was an artist? He was carrying one of those over large black sketchbooks and a small box of writing implements. Just to verify, I peeked at his pages as he looked for the page he was looking for. Yes, full of art. Various kinds of images were hinted at but I would guess a slice of life super hero/villain kind of artist. But he IS the type of artist who sits on the train an quick sketches people. I didn’t look overlong, I was too tired to care. But I did catch the movements in my tired mostly closed eyes that are characteristic of all quick sketch artists I have run across. Sort of a bird-like glance up/look down/sketch/glance up again movement. There were a few people, I might not be the sketch he was making, but for some reason I have a feeling he was.
I was curious about what kind of quick sketch he was doing. While contemplating such thoughts I closed my eyes again and dozed until someone came to sit next to me and I had to change my admittedly slightly dramatic pose to one more normal. The thoughts came to me, he might be doing the guy down the row from me, he might be trying to get my sleeping face, he might be going for the bag, he might even have been going for the hands around the bags. I realised that a quick sketch didn’t have to be a profile or portrait. I never did see the actual image he sketched. A few times I glanced over and he was drawing some large creature or vehicle. Once, near the beginning of the ride, I saw him close the page he was working on as people entered the train and just contemplated two blank pages, but when I glanced up after the train was moving again, he was back to the quick sketch page. I saw a few vague shapes. It looked like it might’ve been three different sketches on the page, but one will never know. He left the train a few stops before mine.
I have seen quick sketch artists on the train before. Lately, they have been this kind where they surreptitious sketch other commuters, but in the past there have been the ones that pass out the sketches to the one they sketched. I ended up picking one up the first year I was here in the city. I have a scan of it laying around somewhere, perhaps I will upload it.
So, if you are in the city for a long while, observe those around you and try to spot yourself being sketched randomly. It’ll happen eventually.
When I was a child, one of my favorite things was magic tricks.
Now, I was never very good at performing the magic tricks, but I loved to explore them and learn what I could. A few of my successful performances included counting cards, a melting knot, and rope the went through my throat. All these are easy to set up and take little to perform.
All this trial and error helped me to appreciate well performed magic tricks and though I still try to see what is done, I am totally enthralled in each well played performance.
Lately, I have had a friend who does coin and card tricks. I started watching his fingers flow around a coin and though I knew how the trick was done I couldn’t imitate it until he gave me a pointer here and there. I still have quite a bit of practicing to do, but I can and have recently done a clumsy performance that is enough to fool those not in the know but not those with sharp eyes. It helped that I worked in concert with him once. We had been practicing mime, but we would need more practice now that I realised what we can do with mime and magic, but I happened to have a couple coins and we made it look like we were passing the coin back and forth through the air. Of course, I am bad at it, so it only went one way, but if you talked to those who watched… we did it both ways. Amusing.
Sometime after the coin tricks, he brought in cards and I watched the card dance in his hands. I was never able to pull off the card tricks. They require an angle and hand movements my fingers wouldn’t allow. I still can’t, but I do appreciate knowing how the tricks are done. He frowned at me the first time I asked. After I proved I knew how several tricks were done, he tiredly informed me that I had to carry cards around all the time. Well, I took him at his word. I carried the cards around. I didn’t PLAY with cards myself, but in moments of dull times, I would pull out the cards and pass them over to him to play with. He would amaze and astound anyone near us just for fun. He didn’t seem to be happy that I could see through his tricks.
Finally, it happened. The one trick I was unsure of. After he astounded our mutual friend over and over again by using a tactic I didn’t actually see, he not only showed me that tactic, but also showed me the one I had been asking after for nearly two years. AMAZING yet another trick that I have no skill at, but he is so skilled and energetic, it makes me want to practice.
As we were traveling together at one point, he illustrated with hand movements and energy how much he appreciated the masters. I informed him I thought he was amazing enough. Later, he told me that if I liked his performance, I would be astounded with the Grand Masters and he would send me links.
Ok, I know this sounds really weird for someone who proclaims to like magic tricks… but my response was:
If I wanted to see Grand Masters, I would pay for a show. I would rather see someone I know doing amazing things. Then it is more real.
Posted by niaskywalk on Jun 4, 2010 in Uncategorized
NOTE: This was supposed to post a while ago. For some reason it never uploaded so it may be a little aged.
There’s a subtle, but potentially hugely important, change happening in cell phone use in the U.S.: For 2009 figures, the amount of digital data sent over cell phone networks surpasses voice traffic for the first time. The future has arrived.
This thrills me beyond explanation. I have always had a hard time using phones because I have a hard time hearing. Finding out that many other people also use mostly data makes me feel justified when I insist that people text message me.
The U.S. has finally caught up with the SMS trend, many years after it exploded across Europe, and CTIA data shows that the number of text messages sent by the average U.S. user leaped 50% in 2009 from the previous year.
I never understood why text messaging of any sort took so long to take off in the US. From the minute I heard the term “SMS” from my friends in foreign countries, I wanted to be right on that train. It took until the age of Twitter to make it a reality here. How interesting.
And remember that by far the greater number of phones still in use on these networks aren’t the data-munching smartphones like iPhones or Android devices–they’re the old-style dumbphones, which may be capable of limited Net browsing and picture messaging, but which still serve the primary task of phone calling and SMSing.
Where I am at, I would not have believed this if I was told it vocally. I use a dumbphone and about half the people I talk to do so as well, but the other half is all smartphone. I personally use an ancient bar dumbphone that is pay-as-you-go everything. Nearly everyone in my office is moving to smartphones if they are the least tech savvy. I am going to follow that trend soon since I have begun texting and communicating more and more in the last few months. I am turning green with envy to get a smartphone with apps… but at the moment I will be content knowing that the dumbphones are being used just as much as I would hope they would be.
And when that happens, something odd will happen to the cellphone providers themselves–they’ll be relegated to merely being vanilla pipes over which your lovely smartphone data flows.
Aren’t they already? LOL thanks Kit Eaton, this was a fun article for me.
I was chatting with a co-worker the other day and I realised I never wrote a listing or explanation of all the stuff I have gotten into. Up until now, all anyone has pretty much seen is my claim that I am into a lot of things and then I write about the same things over and over. Manga, Japanese, events/conventions, hanging out, video games, computers, internet…. I am sure you are wondering why I claim to have many more interests when I can’t seem to shut up about all the stuff I am currently into.
I think it is time to share some of my past stories with you. Where shall I begin? There are some blanket topics, such as Girl Scouts, YMCA Indian Princesses, Soccer, Day Camp and Residential Camp, High School, Part-time jobs and Computers; however, inside each blanket lies layers and layers of little things, and let’s not forget the items that fall outside the blankets and can be considered totally random.
Since the conversation with a co-worker brought the topic up, let’s start with basic carpentry. This category can be covered by Day Camp, YMCA Indian Princesses and High School. To start it off, I need to backtrack just a little.
When I was in the lower grades of school, a new group was just making its way into the area. The YMCA Indians were in existence already, but they were still fairly new and it hadn’t yet been established within our area. Since I was able to do things with mom via the Girl Scouts, Dad needed a way to hang out with me as well. I don’t pretend to know what his thoughts were, but I am thinking mom probably found the information and gave it to him to start things off… or maybe I brought a flier home from school. I don’t really know that answer. Anyway, after attending an introductory seminar, Dad and I began what ended up being a family tradition. We joined the YMCA’s Blackhawk Nation and became Y-Indians. My brothers were not yet old enough to join a tribe so for a while it was just me and dad. In those days it was the dads and girls tribes and the dads and boys tribes, and they only ever interacted at certain events. Later, well after I was already out, that changed and there was more interactions among the groups. I am not sure what it is now, but I have a feeling a tribe is now mixed.
One of the first group projects for the tribe was to do a head for a totem pole. Each family got a block of wood that was to be turned into a depiction of the family and end up being joined with the other family blocks to create a tribe totem pole. In order to work on this, we went to a public-ish wood shop and one place I am sure I would get people in trouble for mentioning since I remember going in through a window. We didn’t do that until we were running behind though. Dad and I came up with an idea, he did the major work, but I did get to learn how to do some chiseling and minor cutting of things, but it was really heavy work for a kid. After the carving was done and the band saw work was completed, it was time to glue, paint and decorate the head. This is the first thing I remember when I think of carpentry and woodwork.
Although this wasn’t technically carpentry yet, though I have since learned that some of the work I learned at this time would’ve been work given to young apprentices, it started one of my interests. When I was in day camp, there were pre-cut wood projects to put together. I got to know the wood shop director–it turned out he was the guy who let us into the public-ish wood shop when I was making that totem head–and when I was old enough, there was weekly woodworking classes/sessions where people could just show up and do whatever project they had or pay for the a new one. I remember going to the shop, looking at the available projects for the week, paying my project fee and then learning how to use the tools. I would guess I was in late grammar school, around 7th grade perhaps as early as 5th grade, since I also invited friends with me and, later, siblings.
Learning about the band saw was fun for me. The wood shop director let us do the broad workings, such as cutting off the outside of an easily managed large piece, but since we were kids, he asked us to let him do the details. When he was doing the details he would explain exactly what he was doing. “For this one I am going to drill a hole here and use a mounted jig saw, for this one, I am going to cut a straight line from the outside to the interior and then cut out the shape…” and so on. I am not sure I ever got to work the detail before I stopped going to the field house, but he explained in such detail that I feel like I had done it myself at least once. Later, while working on other projects with dad, I got to use his jigsaw and I know I followed the techniques taught to me at the field house.
Once, I was in a summer art school at one of the local parks, one of the projects was to create a sculpture out of supplied materials. The wood shop director also worked at this park and for this class he supplied a rather large basket of wood scrap. There may have been other things to use, but I ended up using wood and paint for this. I remember spending time at the basket and picking a variety of shapes. Then, after taking it all back to my station, I piled the wood into some weird creation using wood glue to hold it together and painted it bright orange and dark blue.
Sculpture isn’t something I am good at, but it was fun. I would rather have cut the shapes myself. In case you are curious what I did with the sculpture when the class ended, I can tell you. Other students left their sculptures behind and were probably eventually thrown away. I took mine home and it was in my room for many years. One day, some kids I took care of as a babysitter for were having a yard sale and invited me to add stuff to the table. One of the things I brought was the sculpture I was getting tired of. I didn’t really expect someone to buy it. It really was just me being my typical goofy self, I remember being curious what people would say or do. While I was minding the tables for a while, someone came along and asked me about it. I told them it was an art project for an art camp and we chatted about it for while. I told him I didn’t have much love for it anymore, but I couldn’t just throw it away. The guy gave me money for it and asked me to sign the bottom. I was bemused, I don’t know how much he gave me, it went into the box of money, but the story is mine to tell now. I wonder if it still exists.
Still no real basic carpentry mentioned. In addition to these fancy things, I did typical things too. When new self-assembly stuff came into our house, I grabbed it. I followed the directions when they let me do it myself, and read the directions when I was helping instead. There was a lot of this, I remember assembling a lot of things: shelves, cases, bicycles, toy houses. One year I received as a gift a woodburning kit which included a woodburning tool and various additional materials, while my brothers received various other woodworking supplies–a build-it out kit with a clock and a birdhouse and some other things and a kit that involved pounding nails into metal and mounting the result on wood. I left their stuff alone mostly, though I did tell them if they finished their projects they could play with my woodburning tools. Everyone liked my tool, I even once returned home after school to find someone had used it without my permission. They never did complete their own projects. I found their remnants years later and completed what I could since by then they were public domain. My woodburning supplies never got exhausted because after a few intense flurries of action, I stored the items to be completed later when I was better as using the tool. I still have a few bits and pieces, they are still together with both my original woodburning pen and the newer one I bought only a couple years ago.
Nope, no basic carpentry yet. Though I would like to point out, in just the processes I have mentioned thus far, I learned how to follow direction, cut to measure, stylize and decorate. My dad had a woodpile in the basement. It didn’t just sit there. There were projects that involved using saw horses and other ways of measuring and cutting. When our family put drywall in the bathroom as we were remodeling, I learned about plumb- and chalk-lines and Levels; I learned how to tear out walls and put walls in; How and where to put screws in the wall; I learned about the tape that goes in the corners and the stuff that goes on them to make the wall smooth. Over the years living at home and updating the house and fixing things, I learned the basics, but the bits didn’t form a whole in true basic carpentry until I joined the stage crew at my high school.
When I was in High School, after many years of being in plays and singing in choruses in grammar school, I tried out for musicals. I learned how poor my singing and acting were at that time, but I couldn’t just leave drama alone. When I didn’t make it onto the cast due to my inability to learn dances quickly, I joined the stage crew. That one year of producing “Hello, Dolly!” probably was one of the best years ever. Our crew director, a man called Merrill, taught us all how and why to build what we needed. Through Merrill, I learned to take the techniques and skills I had learned all my life and apply it to something useful. We built stairways, trapdoors, walls and boxes that became stages, and then learned how to paint/decorate it all.
After successfully completing the play and learning all these marvelous new skills, I was inundated with requests from family. We had decided we were going to move and we needed to redo the entire house to make it salable. My mother was always redecorating the house once the old wallpaper and paint we had lived with since we moved it was stripped from the walls back in my grammar school era, but now it was time for a few major changes. For the record we didn’t move until over a decade later, but the point was we were trying. We demolished a set of bookshelves we had had forever, they were a blond wood and took up the lower half of one whole wall, the above area was filled with a dark brown cork so we could fill the walls easily with decorations, it belonged to the 70s. We repainted the parts we were keeping and installed our previously free-floating temporary fireplace into the center of it all. To make it fancy, my mother bought the supplies to make the entire base look like marble; a technique I had learned with Merrill. By the time we left the house finally, we fooled many a person. They were surprised to find the marble was actually wood! I consider this a success.
However, the major success I claim was when I assisted my father in building a solid wall with a door. As my brothers were aging, they wanted their own rooms and the only way we could do this was to take away my father’s workroom which was for all intents and purposes a den. Dad was a smoker and he needed to be at the extremities of the house so that Mom, who is allergic to smoke of all sorts, wouldn’t be overwhelmed by it. We converted our previously party ready back porch. The room was already covered solidly, but still outside the house technically. We cut it in two parts: One part was to become dad’s new den, the other was to be storage. We had old cabinets from when we remodeled the kitchen, they were attached to walls and were supported read to become the new storage area. For Dad’s den we needed a wall separator. Between the two of us, Dad and I created a wall that fit in the space and we only anchored it in place. It was fun buying all the supplies and renting a saw-table. By the time we were finished, we had a real wall, real door and a whole storage area that was all in existence until we left the house. That was at least a decade. Built to last? Yes!
….. and that is one story. While I was going through this, I had to nip and cut and try to keep it all on-topic. Nearly every other paragraph could lead to more stories.
What interests do you have? would you care to share them with me and whoever reads these posts? I would love to hear from you.
It has been a while since my last update. I had intended on updating at least once a week, but I seem to have failed at that. Over the last few weeks several changes have been occurring and I haven’t had time to update.
The most interesting change is the fact I am moving residence. Why would you, my readers, care about such an event? Quite simply put, it will give me more access to the internet. More access to the internet away from work and at all hours of the day will give me better time to write up better blog posts. So you should be cheering… or booing if you are reading these posts to be contrary.
Another change is not noticeable anywhere else and shouldn’t really concern anyone, but I wanted to log it anyway. I finally found people to hang out with in New York. Yes, there are co-workers and family, but it just isn’t the same. Now that there are people willing to do events and just go out around the town with me, perhaps I will have more stories to share on this blog! (Insert more cheering… or boos and hisses)
Between work, apartment viewing, going to plays by friends, family visiting and just hanging out with people, I have had no time at all for blogging, or LiveJournaling, or even Facebooking.
I know you don’t believe my “coming up” declarations because the drafts end up on my backend well beyond their use-by date, but I do have a couple things I would like to post about. “How I Spent My Easter” is a story I would like to share, as well as “Peeps-Sushi? I tried making it…” and I believe I want to share some prose I wrote called “Ode to an Old Friend” after I clean it up a bit.
Is there anything else you would like to see from me? I mean, I literally write random things and post them. My blog has no theme other than “What Interests Me Right Now”, but I would love to know what anyone who actually reads this thing would like to see.
What do you think of my modified ‘Desktop’ theme on my blog? My brother has dubbed the mug “The raging rapid cocoa” I’ll get around to fixing that…. along with the dinner mint-shaped marshmallows… but I like it. The flooring/desk doesn’t seem so bad either. Let me know.
This seems to be more than enough rambling, I hope to have a better post up in the near future. Thanks for reading!
Lately, I have been neglecting my gymnastics posts. There are various reasons, but the main one is I have been in pain and therefore my gymnastics has become sporadic and reduced to complete beginner.
The coaches for my classes lately have been Zak, Randy and Damir. Until today, mostly Damir and Zak worked with the advance beginners while Randy worked with the rank beginners. Since about August or September, I have been in Randy’s class. Staying in a mild state of fitness while giving my joints and muscles a bit of a break and time to recover.
I don’t think I have given a decent rundown of how classes progress, so this time around, allow me to illustrate my basic Adult Beginner’s gymnastics class.
The class I attend is at Chelsea Pier’s Pier 60 Field House in Manhattan. The Adult Beginner Gymnastics class officially begins at 12pm and lasts for 1.5 hours. At 12pm, one instructor(coach) starts the class with warm-ups. Sometimes, the warm-ups are actually pretty physical and other times the warm-ups are just enough to make the student sweat. It depends entirely on the coach.
After the warm-up, a large circle is formed on the mat and the stretching begins. My favorite style is more akin to yoga or pilates, but there are some coaches who do the kind of stretches I remember having in gym class, and every coach does something completely different. Although the styles and methods are different almost all the stretching ends with handstand practice before we take in some water and return to the Floor area for Conditioning and skill practice.
Jack Fletcher is shipwrecked off the coast of Japan — his beloved father and the crew lie slaughtered by ninja pirates.
Rescued by the legendary sword master Masamoto Takeshi, Jack’s only hope is to become a samurai warrior. And so his training begins…
But life at the samurai school is a constant fight for survival. Even with his friend Akiko by his side, Jack is singled out by bullies and treated as an outcast.
With courage in his heart and his sword held high, can Jack prove himself and face his deadliest rival yet?
Review
Last year, when Young Samurai hit the bookshelves, I passed a cursory look over the book, read the back, looked at the one-line reviews and was all-together unimpressed. I didn’t bother seeking the book out or adding it to my review list and basically I ignored its existance.
Last week, I saw book two coming down the line and the first book fell neatly into my lap. Again, I was unimpressed with the synopsis or the reviews. However, I became intrigued by the look of The Way of the Sword so I decided to check out the The Way of the Warrior first.
I have been interested in the Japanese language and current culture for only a short period of time, however I have a past in Japanese Karate (shourin-ryuu), Shinkendo and had a fantastic sensei (teacher) or two who tried to impart the ways of Bushido (Way of the Warrior) and encourage a path to modern samurai. Because of my history, I started reading this book with a basic knowledge of some swordsmanship, martial arts and Japanese historical culture. Chris Bradford’s mini-glossary at the back of the book, minor notes on Japanese culture and full quotes with references started to make me a bit more excited to begin reading.
Twelve-year-old rigging monkey Jack Fletcher’s story didn’t pull me in right away, and it took a couple chapters to capture my undivided attention. When it did, I was helpless until I set it down at the end.
Everyone is sleeping uneasily in their dark ship, keeping a watchful eye out for pirates after the final repairs are made, dark shadows begin flowing silently throughout the ship. Soon our little hero comes face to face with what he later learns is a ninja. A ninja with a single bright green eye. Dragon Eye demands the rutter, a tome of sailing knowledge and secrets, from Jack’s father. Jack’s father gives the invader the wrong information and lurches to protect his son from the knife the ninja is bringing to bear on Jack. Dragon Eye in swiftly kills the man and runs off to find the prize. Soon Jack rescues his father’s secrets from the correct location and escapes the ship as the gunpowder is ignited by a dying bosun.
Jack was rescued by Masamoto Takeshi and brought to heal at his sister’s house. Here, during his recovery, the richness of ‘the Japans’ is introduced to the boy little by little. Jack learns the strange language and customs of the house in his frustration to communicate with the strange people. After a meeting with a Portuguese priest and Masamoto-sama, Jack is left at the house for the winter to learn how to speak Japanese, to use hashi (chopsticks), table etiquette, minor social etiquette and even some light swordsmanship. He entices Masamoto Yamato, Masamoto-sama’s only son, to teach him the basics of using a bokken and the two end up having randori (free sparring) all about the beautiful garden.
After Dragon Eye attacks the house he is staying in, Jack and his new friends—Yamato and his cousin beautiful Akiko—who stood against and repelled the invaders, are moved to Masamoto’s samurai school in Kyoto, Niten Ichi Ryu, where they are to become samurai warriors and study techniques and bushido.
Once the children entered the school, the story becomes almost typical. As one would expect, the children meet teachers, take their first classes, learn new techniques, and of course gain enemies from day one. What good school setting doesn’t have enemies? Since Jack is a gaijin—an outsider/foreigner—he is immediately set upon by those who hate outsiders and he must prove himself worthy of samurai training in the eyes of his fellow students, despite being vouched for by the school’s master.
As I was following the children through their day, I was reminded of my days as a student in the various classes. From seiza to sensei rei and through sword forms and meditation, it made me want to return to my classes and seek out my old instructors.
I was amazed by how Chris Bradford pulled me in little by little until by the end of the story I found myself a fan and wanting the next book. I closed the book when I finished and looked again at the back of the book and at the reviews. Even though I had just finished the book and knew the story for what it was, I was still unimpressed. Don’t judge this book by its cover. Ignore the eye rolling reviews of “…this book gets a black belt…” These do not do the story the justice it deserves.
This book was not only an ultimately fun read, but it was also informative. The story was backed with research and history that was fun to explore later, such as information on women samurai. I had no idea there were women samurai, it was quite a shock and found myself enjoying the research.
The book is recommended for ages 10 and up. I do recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in karate, swords, Japan or any looking to expand their knowledge. I also recommend it to anyone who likes Ranger’s Apprentice or Harry Potter. The worlds may be different, but the feeling is about the same: friendly companions in a school setting battling school rivals and occasional outsiders.
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