Whirlwind Hooping

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AND THEN THEY DID THIS!!

Like, a flogging bottom might be praised for their ability to take pain and know their limits, or a rope bunny might be recognised as keeping themselves in good physical shape so they can hold complicated stress positions for longer than a novice, but even the most beginner of beginner bootblacks has learnt a little bit of materials science (Will this type of brush scratch this patent finish?), a little bit of basic chemistry (If these were last polished with a silicone wax, how do I remove that to start to bull them?), a little bit of leatherworking history (Is that natural fibre stitching on those surplused Warsaw Pact boots, will my polish rot it?) and spent time practising techniques on their own boots.

And it's one of the few kinks I can think of where the top is so immediately physically and emotionally vulnerable to the bottom in that way: I put my foot in the hands of a stranger bootblacking at a party, and I trust that they won't damage the boots I was gifted by my long-dead Master when I was 17, that they won't soak the stitching and start the rot of the boots I was wearing when I first fucked the love of my life, I trust that they'll carefully work around and treat the cuts and scuffs in the leather that I picked up wearing these same boots marshalling at a dozen prides and going toe-to-toe with strikebreakers and scabs on twenty years' worth of picket lines. The experienced bootblack can look at my soles and where my boots crease, and see that I have a weak hip, that I'm slightly bowlegged, that I don't drive and that I walk even in the weather where I'd rather not. And I trust that they'll see that worn-out, poor, slightly sad old man and still call me "sir".

(For those who are about to ask, it’s called Throne of Blood in English but its actual name is Spiderweb Castle and some Shakespeare scholars are big mad about it because other Shakespeare scholars consider it the best film adaptation of Macbeth ever made and we can’t have that)

THE ARCHERS DIDN’T KNOW MIFUNE’S BLOCKING. Every time you see him fling out an arm he’s actually signaling to the archers which way he’s about to go. That’s it, that’s what they had to go on. And they were shooting on location on Mount Fuji, which Akira Kurosawa had chosen SPECIFICALLY FOR ITS DENSE FOG.

However, BECAUSE this was Akira Kurosawa—if you don’t know that name think “Stanley Kubrick but earlier and Japanese and not quite as much of an asshole to his actors”—and he was insane, Mifune is also wearing real 19th-century feudal lord armor, in the sense that while it’s a modern reproduction it is completely functional. A feudal lord from the early 1800s could have been resurrected in the 1950s when this was filmed, handed this armor, and would have gone “yeah, that’s correct.” There are actually a couple of shots where you see arrows hit his torso and bounce off, or stick in the armor but they’ve very clearly only just barely stuck rather than going through.

So his torso is protected, and there’s a railing in front of him that provides some protection to his legs, and yes, this means THE MOST VULNERABLE PART OF HIM WAS ALSO THE ONLY PART THAT WOULD DEFINITELY KILL HIM: his face. I’m sure it was of very little comfort to him that the archers also weren’t very powerful shots.

Oh, and his character dies by taking an arrow through the neck. You can tell that one is a trick shot because it’s the only shot filmed from that specific angle, but I can imagine Mifune was none too eager to do it after all this.

Another fascinating snippet:

"Lady Asaji" (the Lady MacBeth equivalent) never blinks while the camera is on her. Not once.

It's not easily noticed unless forewarned and looking, but it does contribute to an uncanny-valley feeling that there's something not-quite-right about the character.

I can't remember if the actress (Isuzu Yamada) went all the way with her court makeup and blackened her teeth as this one has done.

Probably not, or there would definitely be comments about it on-line.

I've seen on-line claims that the makeup is based on Kabuki theatre.

Noh, it isn't. :->

It's actually period-correct for a noblewoman of the Heian period (794-1185) and IIRC preceded - also may have inspired - that "female" style of Noh mask.

Here the makeup's being worn by Lady Murasaki Shikibu, who wrote "The Tale of Genji" about 1000 years ago.

If interested in this period and its customs, both very different to the later, better-known Tokugawa-period samurai stuff, "The World of the Shining Prince" by Ivan Morris is a fascinating read.

*****

More method acting with projectile weapons:

James Cagney was shot at with a REAL Thompson submachine gun during the making of both "Public Enemy" (1931) and "Angels With Dirty Faces" (1938).

I blogged about it years ago here, a long-ish post about safety vs realism in movie fights.

Here's Cagney talking about the Public Enemy one.

New research using neural networks, a form of brain-inspired AI, proposes a solution to the tough challenge of modeling the states of molecules. The research shows how the technique can help solve fundamental equations in complex molecular systems. This could lead to practical uses in the future, helping researchers to prototype new materials and chemical syntheses using computer simulation before trying to make them in the lab. Led by Imperial College London and Google DeepMind scientists, the study is published in Science.

Poll Horse Evolution

Spoilers ahead, if you do not want to see the poll horses in an unfinished state do not open this post!

the last poll has ended everyone welcome

Wheat Thin :) the poll horse!

Adventure: I went to a New Smoke Shop for a chance at Better Smokes

to a New Smoke Shop for a

chance at Better Smokes