Japanese Tip.

installation view | photo by Kakijiro Tokutani.

installation view | photo by Kakijiro Tokutani.

This is just too cool!

Yuki Tatsumi was working as a waiter in a restaurant when one day, as he was cleaning up a table, he noticed that a customer had intricately folded up the paper chopstick sleeve and left it behind. Japan doesn’t have a culture of tipping but Tatsumi imagined that this was a discreet , subconscious method of showing appreciation. He began paying attention and sure enough noticed that other customers were doing the same thing. Tatsumi began collecting these “tips” which eventually led to his art project: Japanese Tip.

Since 2012 Tatsumi has not only been collecting his own tips but he’s reached out to restaurants and eateries all across Japan communicating his concept and asking them to send him their tips. The response has been enormous. He’s collected over 13,000 paper sculptures that range from obscure and ugly to intricate and elaborate.

Earlier this month Tatsumi staged an exhibition in Tokyo where he displayed 8000 of some of the most interesting sculptures sourced from all 47 prefectures around Japan. “Japanese Tip is a project between restaurants and customers,” says Tatsumi, “to communicate the ‘appreciation for food’ and ‘appreciation of the service’  by using the most common material used at any Japanese restaurant.”

The exhibition has since closed but you can see some of the paper sculptures on his website and you can follow the initiative on Facebook.

Such a cool and thoughtful thing to do. You can read and see more at Spoon & Tamago.

Hoopoe.

Hoopoe in a roundel. The hoopoe has a comb-like crest and startling black and white bars across its body. The crest illustrated is more like a peacock's crest. Compare the totally different version of the hoopoe on f. 36v.

Hoopoe in a roundel. The hoopoe has a comb-like crest and startling black and white bars across its body. The crest illustrated is more like a peacock’s crest. Compare the totally different version of the hoopoe on f. 36v.

Text Translation:

[Of the hoopoe] The Greeks call the bird by this name because it roosts in human ordure and feeds on stinking excrement. The filthiest of birds, it is capped with a prominent crest. It lives in burial places amid human ordure. If you rub yourself with its blood on your way to bed, you will have nightmares about demons suffocating you. On this subject, Rabanus says: ‘This bird signifies wicked sinners, men who continually delight in the squalor of sin.’ The hoopoe is said to take pleasure in grief, as the sorrow of this world brings about the death of the spirit; for this reason those who love God should ‘rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing and in every thing give thanks’ (see 1 Thessalonians, 5:16-18) ‘for the fruit of the Spirit is joy’ (see Galatians, 5:22).

In addition, Physiologus says of the hoopoe that when it grows old and cannot fly, its offspring come and pull out the oldest feathers from its body and constantly care for it, until it has recovered its strength as before and can fly. The young hoopoes provide, therefore, an example to those evil men who, when their parents grow old, throw them out of their home; who refuse to support, when they are weak, the parents who raised them when they were still in their infancy. Let man, who is endowed with reason, learn his duty to his mother and father, from the way in which this creature, which lacks reason, provides (as we have already shown) for its parents’ needs when they are old.

Then there’s a bit more on the Night Owl:

Of the night-owl The night-owl, noctua, is so called because it flies at night and cannot see in the daytime. For its sight is dimmed by brightness of the sun when it has risen. The night-owl, noctua, is not the same as the owl, bubo, which is bigger. But the night-crow, nicticorax, is the same as the night-owl, because it loves the night. For it is a bird which shuns the light and cannot bear to see the sun. This bird symbolises the Jews who, when the Lord our Saviour came to save them, rejected him, saying: ‘We have no king but Caesar’ (John, 19:15); and ‘loved darkness rather than light’ (John, 3:19). Then our Lord turned to us, the Gentiles, and gave us light as we sat in darkness and the shadow of death; of the Gentiles it is said: ‘A people which I knew not shall serve me’ (Samuel 2, 22:44; Psalms, 18:44); and in another prophet: ‘I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved’ (Romans, 9:25; see Hosea, 2:23). Of the people of the Jews, the sons of strangers etc.

Folio 50v – the owl, continued. [De hupupa] ; Of the hoopoe.

Owl.

Portrait of the owl. This owl 'bubo' is tawny brown and beige with a flat face and prominent ears like horns. Bubo, as described by Aristotle (buas or bruas in Greek) was as large as an eagle which must indicate the relatively rare eagle owl. It has prominent ear tufts as shown but it is tawny all over and does not have a flat face. The long eared owl has a flat face and ears but is also tawny all over. The barn owl is closest in colouring to the illustration and also has a flat face, but it does not have ears. As projecting ears or horns are not mentioned in the Bestiary text they may derive from a much earlier source which was still aware of the connection between bubo and the eagle owl.

Portrait of the owl. This owl ‘bubo’ is tawny brown and beige with a flat face and prominent ears like horns. Bubo, as described by Aristotle (buas or bruas in Greek) was as large as an eagle which must indicate the relatively rare eagle owl. It has prominent ear tufts as shown but it is tawny all over and does not have a flat face. The long eared owl has a flat face and ears but is also tawny all over. The barn owl is closest in colouring to the illustration and also has a flat face, but it does not have ears. As projecting ears or horns are not mentioned in the Bestiary text they may derive from a much earlier source which was still aware of the connection between bubo and the eagle owl.

Text Translation:

Of the owl Isidore says of the owl: ‘The name owl, bubo, is formed from the sound it makes. It is a bird associated with the dead, weighed down, indeed, with its plumage, but forever hindered, too, by the weight of its slothfulness. It lives day and night around burial places and is always found in caves.’ On this subject Rabanus says: ‘The owl signifies those who have given themselves up to the darkness of sin and those who flee from the light of righteousness.’ As a result it is classed among the unclean creatures in Leviticus (see 11:16). Consequently, we can take the owl to mean any kind of sinner.

The owl gets its name from the sound it makes, because its mouth speaks when its heart is overfull, for what it thinks about in its mind, it utters with its voice. It is said to be a filthy bird, because it fouls its nest with its droppings, as the sinner dishonours those with whom he lives, by the example of his evil ways. It is weighed down with its plumage, as the sinner is with an excess of carnal pleasure and with fickleness of mind; but it is truly hampered by the weight of its sloth. It is hindered by the weight of its idleness and sloth, as sinners are lazy and slothful in acting virtuously. It spends its days and nights around burial places, as the sinner delights in sin, which is like the stench of decaying human flesh. For it lives in caves like the sinner who will not emerge from darkness by means of confession but detests the light of truth.

When other birds see the owl, they signal its presence with loud cries and harrass it with fierce assaults. In the same way, if a sinner comes into the light of understanding, he becomes an object of derision to the virtuous. And when he is caught openly in the act of sinning, his ears are filled with their reproaches. As the birds pull out the owl’s feathers and tear at it with their beaks, the virtuous censure the carnal acts of the sinner and condemn his excesses. The owl is known, therefore, as a miserable bird, just as the sinner, who behaves in the way we have described above, is a miserable man.

Folio 50r – the blackbird, continued. De bubone; Of the Owl.

Blackbird.

Portrait of the blackbird in a roundel. It is painted brown either in ignorance of the text or because it is a female bird.

Portrait of the blackbird in a roundel. It is painted brown either in ignorance of the text or because it is a female bird.

Text Translation:

Of the blackbird. Isidore says of the blackbird: ‘The blackbird in ancient times was called medula, because it sang rhythmically.’ Others say that it was called merula, because it flew on its own, mera volans, so to speak. Although it is black wherever it is found, there is a white species in Achaia. The blackbird is small but black. It represents those tainted by the blackness of sin. The blackbird both moves and charms itself by the sweetness of its own voice. It represents those who are tempted by the suggestion of carnal pleasures. In fact, the blessed Gregory refers to this in his book of Dialogues, when he recounts how the blackbird came on the wing to the blessed Benedict and how after the departure of the bird, he was tempted with the fire of lust.

Gregory says: One day when the blessed Benedict was alone, the tempter appeared. For a small, black bird, commonly called a blackbird, began to fly around his head and to come up close to his face in a cheeky fashion, so that Benedict could have taken it in his hand if the saint had wanted to hold it. But he made the sign of the cross and the bird flew away. Such a temptation of the flesh as followed the departure of the bird, the saint had never experienced. For the evil spirit now brought before his inner eye the image of a woman whom Benedict had once seen. And the mind of the servant of God burned with such fire at the sight of her, that the flame of his love could scarcely contain itself in his breast and, overcome by desire, he now almost resolved to quit the wilderness. When suddenly, touched by the grace of heaven, he recovered himself, and seeing thick bushes of nettles and thorns growing nearby, he stripped off the garment he was wearing and threw himself naked amid the pricking thorns and stinging nettles. And having rolled in them, he emerged with his body covered in wounds, and through these wounds to his skin he discharged from his body the wound to his soul, because he transformed his desire into pain.

Yikes. Seriously, not a selling point for christianity. Blackbirds are among my favourite birds, and I can quite honestly say that not one of them has made me be overcome with horniness.

The blackbird in flight, therefore, represents enticement, tempting you to desire. If you want, therefore, to reject the desire symbolised by the blackbird, you must follow the example of the blessed Benedict and turn instead to the correction of discipline and thus rid yourself of pleasures of the mind by inflicting pain on your flesh. In the regions of Achaia, according to Isidore, there are white blackbirds. A white blackbird represents purity of will. But by Achaia we understand the industrious sister. There are two sisters, Rachel and Leah, namely the active and the contemplative life. Leah we take to be the industrious one. The active life teaches us to devote ourselves to works of charity, to teach men who lack discernment, to have the purity of chastity, to work with our own hands. This is Achaia, the active life. In Achaia, therefore, like the white blackbirds, live those who live chastely the active life.

Folio 49v – the stork, continued. De [merula]; Of the blackbird.