Animal Sculptures.

Autumn is officially upon us. It’s the season of shorter days, brighter moons and bountiful harvests. Niigata prefecture, in Northern Japan, is known for its rice paddies and rice production. Around this time of year the rice harvest becomes a big deal, as well as the tons of rice straw, or wara, that is leftover. It can be plowed down as soil improver, fed to livestock, or even woven into decorative ornaments. But before any of that, for the past 9 years Uwasekigata Park has hosted a Wara Art Festival by teaming up with art students to create creatures, both large and small, from rice straw.

This year is the 10th anniversary of Niigata’s Wara Art Festival. And to commemorate, participants have sculpted animals twice as large as previous years.

The Wara Art Festival all started in 2006 when the local district reached out to Musashino Art University to seek guidance on transforming their abundant amount of rice straw into art. And in 2008, the very first Wara Art Festival was held. Since then, every year the school sends art students up to Niigata to assist in creating sculptures made out of rice straw. The festivities have ended but the sculptures are on display through October 31, 2017.

You can see more at Spoon & Tamago!

Mushroom Hunt: Effused Conk.

From Charly: I do not know the species, but I think this is a conk and as far as I am able to find out about English nomenclature, it has so called effused fruit body. Czech name could be translated as “spilt conk” which nicely describes its formless growth resembling spilled mushy substance, like oatmeal.

© Charly, all rights reserved.

That one may smile…

Apparently, It’s World Smile Day, originated by Harvey Ball, the commercial artist who came up with the ubiquitous smiley face in the 1960s. Perhaps Mr. Ball wasn’t a fan of Shakespeare: That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain. – Hamlet.

I’m not a fan of Mr. Ball’s smiley face, I’ve always hated that damn thing, and I’ve had a lifetime of seeing it everywhere, and it’s all over the bloody net, too. Give me Kilroy any day. As a girl, and a woman, I’ve been subjected to the “smile!” command my whole life, from those I know, and perfect strangers. You can’t go anywhere without getting that obnoxious command from someone, usually a man.

Smiles don’t necessarily mean one damn thing, especially as so many of us are expected to fake smile throughout the day no matter what. Out in public, you can rarely be lost in your thoughts without hearing “smile!” or “it can’t be that bad, smile!” Kindness, courtesy, and thoughtfulness can easily take place without a smile, as well as with one. If you have a genuine reason to smile, by all means, do so, but do we really need a smile command day?

As Shakespeare noted so long ago, a smile can easily mask villainy of all kinds. Those looking to con someone are known for their easy smiles. And so on. I also have little use for making shit like this a “day”. Great, so you’re gonna smile your way through this day, then what? Go back to being an asshole the other 364? Screw smiling. If you want to make a difference, work on small kindnesses whenever you’re out and about, if you can manage them, with or without the smile. That will stretch further, and have a good chain effect, rather than a bunch of people being smiley because it’s an ‘official day’. All this crap does is promote the artificial smile, and makes people think it’s perfectly okay to keep on with the “smile!” command aimed at people they don’t know. Please, don’t do that, and if someone is not smiling, perhaps they have reason not to do so, and refraining from insisting on a smile would be a small act of kindness.

Note: Anyone who decides it would be clever to pepper a comment with smiley faces will most likely find it edited.