@OldBrushNewPaper ha yes i logged on at just the right moment! i hope spouse and you have fun coming up with more shit stirring options haha

@Satsuma HA HA HAH that is exactly as I'd guessed.

(I've noted from my own behavior how the first thing I see will get my first ⭐ of the day.)

@OldBrushNewPaper especially when its such a good post!

@Satsuma ☺️

@Satsuma It's lovely to have someone to chat to - Saturday morning, post-breakfast, and also slightly at loose ends because normally I'd have been #knitting but today my hand hurts.

I suspect I need to put the *very* long and heavy current work back on a cable: straight needles and that much weight seems to be stressing the joints.

That, however, will be tomorrow - the hands will have to rest today. *pout*

@OldBrushNewPaper ahhh sorry about the enforced rest from knitting! hopefully switching needles helps a big

and glad my extremely strange sleep habits are to your benefit :D i always appreciate getting to chat when you’re around

@Satsuma Weird sleeping habits - acute or systemic?

I go through cycles of not sleeping through the night - enough to have a lot of sympathy for theories of 24+ hour body clocks, or "second sleep" methods of going through the day.

@OldBrushNewPaper just the good old insomnia — we had a daylight savings timeshift recently and my body did not appreciate it

but i would not be shocked to hear a bit of an overlong circadian rhythm either, staying up late is extremely easy in comparison to any other kind of being awake

@Satsuma I don't know enough to say at all how we got from there to today - I know from my Japanese studies that those theater traditions started out having women on stage, but they were then forbidden by the gov't at the time due to "moral concerns".

There's a fair chunk of those activities today that hew to all-male troupes. Although there's been some really great mixed and all-women ones, as well.

@Satsuma I should mention, I have access to a Japanese tv subscription service, and one of the things we get to see is a *fabulous* arts program - extremely varied and because it's national in scope, it's effectively "cream of the crop". We've made some excellent finds, without having to be high-flying academics in this field.

@OldBrushNewPaper oooh nice! Japanese preforming arts is not a thing i have a ton of experience with but i really should check it out

@Satsuma If you were *in* Japan, I could mention the specific show is on Thursday evenings after the late news... *wan grin*

Which is Thursday in the mid-afternoon where we are. And *boy* was finding that program a bother! They'd had it forEVER on a different spot in the schedule, but when they changed it... argh!

There are some kind folks sharing specific eps online, too. Which is what I have running now.

@OldBrushNewPaper ooh yeah online eps are convenient that way!

@Satsuma Especially for specific artists - after "collecting" an ep we'd first seen on the channel about a shakuhachi player, Loving Spouse went on a tear, also buying music from that player's *teacher*, who is designated as a Living National Treasure.

@OldBrushNewPaper oooh nice yeah, i’m glad you’ve found some artists you like!

@Satsuma And also, from a personal point of view, I loved having looked up this particular artist, and then researching articles for him (in English, for my ease and Loving Spouse's access, as he has even less Japanese than I do), learning of his connection to a great master.

Web of life, hyperlocal nodes...

How about you - what's your "in" for travelling through a new culture?

@OldBrushNewPaper honestly mostly food? i cook a lot and i love trying things other people have cooked (whether professionally or otherwise)

frequently willing to order things purely because i don’t recognize them and found out by trying it (within the boundaries of common sense of course haha)

@Satsuma Got a favorite from recently?

@OldBrushNewPaper i was in London for a while in January so not too many surprises on most menus but i did get some fantastic crunchy black sesame & mung bean cookies from a boba store by pointing and going “how much?” I still don’t know what they were called 😆

@Satsuma Oooh, and a mystery, too!!

Yeah, food is a fun way in. And I hope you get a chance to learn what those lovely cookies were called!

@Satsuma @OldBrushNewPaper oh, and don't get me started on even more intricate 18th century gender fuckery on the opera stage.

But that's probably something a good chunk of the people who propose such sweeping bans won't mind to lose either. Who needs opera anyway. /s