Traditional Tattoos on Turtle Island.

Ink, and a container of willow bark tincture for the subject to sip in order to help reduce inflammation during the tattooing. Photo: Alex Hamer.

Ink, and a container of willow bark tincture for the subject to sip in order to help reduce inflammation during the tattooing. Photo: Alex Hamer.

Ganondagan, a museum and former village site of the Seneca Nation, held its Tattoo Traditions of Turtle Island event on October 15th in Victor, NY to showcase Iroquoian and other nations traditional tattoos. The event contained presentations on historical tattoos and a live demonstration.

Michael Galban, Washoe/Paiute, curator at Ganondagan opened the event with a presentation on customs of the Northeast Woodland Natives, with an emphasis on Haudenosaunee tattoos, but also touched on Delaware and Cree tattoo traditions.

You can read and see more at ICTMN. I would so love to have another turtle done in the traditional manner.

The Reappearance of Extraño.

For those who might be willing to remember the very cringe-worthy, briefly lived (thankfully) character of Extraño, a gay magician from Peru, from DC’s 1988 crossover, Millennium, this is what you remember, gay stereotype extraordinaire:

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Yep. There really cannot be enough mockery. That damn thing cries out for a caption contest. I believe I’ve mentioned that I’ve never been a big DC fan. This can be counted as one reason why. A gay character who looked like the bastard offspring of Mandrake, an unknown pirate, and Liberace, with apologies to Liberace. The character spoke with a lisp, called himself “Auntie” and gave lots of unsolicited advice. I’m sure you’re thinking it couldn’t possibly be worse than that. Wrong! Extraño goes up against a villain by the name of Hemo-goblin (oh yes. Feel free to cringe), contracts HIV, and was eventually killed off in a Green Lantern. I know it was the ’80s, but fuck me, there was just no excuse. I never expected to see this character, or even the name, again.

Extraño is back though, at least marginally, in last week’s first issue of Midnighter and Apollo. What is great is how Extraño is characterized there:

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Nice, right? This is in the hands of openly bi writer Steve Orlando, and if he’s handling things, I’d be happy to welcome Extraño back. Full story is at The Advocate.

Lightning Bolts…

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© C. Ford.

Earlier, Marcus made a comment about the horses and lightning bolts. Yes, there are a number of oddly placed lightning bolts on the horse quilt, but they aren’t quite intentional. Neurological deficits aren’t fun, especially when you’re doing something like painting, on pristine white fabric. Or canvas, or paper. I’m subject to what my late neurologist called disconnects. As far as my brain is concerned, why yes, I do have a grip of death on that loaded paintbrush. The reality: I don’t, and loaded paintbrush drops right on to an inconvenient place on my pristine fabric. Okaaaay…lightning bolt. Involuntarily dropping things is a right pain, but especially when you have to risk your work. There will no doubt be many more lightning bolts.

Cool Stuff Friday.

It’s Posing for Pixels time again! 

 
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Acclaimed authors Jim C. Hines, Chuck Wendig, and Tee Morris have bravely volunteered to do custom gender-flipped cover poses to encourage the Science Fiction & Fantasy community to help The Pixel Project‘s Read For Pixels 2016 Indiegogo fundraiser reach our $5,000 fundraising goal (and beyond) this October! The Pixel Project is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that combines the power of the internet, social media, and pop culture/the arts to raise awareness, funds, and volunteer power to end violence against women.

READ FOR PIXELS: Operation Cover Pose 2016 To Help End Violence Against Women.

 

READ FOR PIXELS 2016: FALL EDITION.

Public Lavatories: How To Do Them Right.

While there is endless, pointless arguing here in uStates over whether or not some people are people enough to use a public lav, and whether or not it’s okey dokey to try and scope out whether or not someone has an approved set of genitals, with regressive assholes intent on doing damage, and making everyone feel unsafe, squabbling like fucking four year olds over who gets to be the dominant one, Japan get its oh so right. I’m ready to run away from home.

What does Japan care about? Utility, of course, but also comfort, design, and the sheer artistry that can be a public lav. The Japanese government awards a highly coveted Toilet of the Year award to spaces deemed worthy. And boy, do they have a whole lot of worthy.

After all, the government estimates that in our lifetime we spend up to 11 months in a bathroom. So why shouldn’t they be spaces that are clean, soothing and relaxing?

So, officials created a pamphlet (PDF) of public toilets they deemed exemplary, and distributed it earlier this year in hopes of elevating the entire public toilet industry. Here are a selection of government-approved public toilets.

And there are a lot of them! You’ll need to click over to Spoon & Tamago to see and read about them all, or hit the pdf. Here are some examples, and it sure would be nice if uStates could grow up and start focusing on what really matters, like grown up Japan:

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Gallery Toto at Narita Airport Terminal 2 (Chiba)

At Narita Airport, Japan’s gateway to the world, an art installation-like lineup of toilets greet travelers. Here you’ll find iconic toilet-maker Toto’s latest toilet technology, which is of course available for public usage. We wrote about this project here.

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Haneda Airport International Terminal (Tokyo)

At Haneda you’ll find a public bathroom that’s been specifically designed to aid and assist disabled travelers. Universal signage, wide passageways and even a toilet for service dogs makes this bathroom user-friendly for absolutely anyone.

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Neopasa Shimizu Service Area (Tomei Expressway, Shizuoka)

Highway service areas usually have the grossest toilets. But not at Neopasa, where an oasis of clean and beautiful toilets await tired drivers and passengers. There are more than twice as many stalls in the ladies’ room, compared to the men’s, to combat longer lines. And a large monitor screen at the entrance even tells you which stalls are unoccupied.

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Neopasa Surugawan Numazu Service Area (Tomei Expressway, Shizuoka)

This is the only service area along the Tomei Expressway that has views of the sea. So the operator decided to build their bathroom on the 2nd floor near the terrace and create a space where people want to go, not just because they have to go.

Via Spoon & Tamago, go look! Maybe we can all plan to run away together. I want to live in Hokkaido, though.

Evil Mickey, 1934.

Mickey Mouse is one of the most popular cartoon characters in Japan, in line with beloved domestics like Totoro, Doraemon and Hello Kitty. But 80 years ago that certainly wasn’t the case, at least not according to a 1934 propaganda film that cast Mickey as an evil invader that’s come to terrorize a happy island community.

In the animated film, released just 8 years before pearl harbor, Mickey Mouse arrives by air, followed by a group of alligators by sea that perhaps symbolize a U.S. Navy fleet. The islanders turn to a fairy tale book for help and out come legendary Japanese fairy tale characters like Momotaro, Kintaro, Issunboshi and Urashima-Taro. Fairy tale characters coming to life is an animation trope that will become widely used later on, and as Open Culture points out, the underlying message here is that Japan has older, stronger and way more numerous fairytale characters.

Spoiler alert: in the end, Mickey is turned into an old, decrepit mouse by a white plume of smoke by Urashima-taro, who had undergone a similar fate in his fairy tale.

Spoon & Tamago has the full story.