Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, September 20, 2007

Photo was taken the same day as those used in the following video, which can also be viewed on YouTube.

Nakayama Tomisaburō

The actor Nakayama Tomisaburo, known for playing female roles.
Artist: Kabukidō Enkyō (1749 – 1803), woodcut print, color, size ~13.5 x 9.1 in

The term ukiyo-e, literally “pictures of the floating world,” refers to a genre of Japanese artwork that flourished in the Edo period (1600–1868). As the phrase “floating world” suggests, with its roots in the ephemeral worldview of Buddhism, ukiyo-e captured the fleeting dynamics of contemporary urban life. While being accessible and catering to “common” tastes, the artistic and technical details of these prints show remarkable sophistication, their subjects ranging from portraits of courtesans and actors to classical literature. This print is one of only seven known works, all portraits of actors, by Kabukidō Enkyō (1749–1803), the sole follower of the enigmatic Tōshūsai Sharaku. Nothing was known of Enkyō until 1926, when it was discovered that he also used the name Nakamura Jūsuke II; under this name he was known as an author and Kabuki actor. It is likely that the subject here is Nakayama Tomisaburō, a male actor who played female roles, as identified by an identical print by Enkyō in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. (World Digital Library article)

Nakayama Tomisaburo products on Zazzle: poster and much more.

Hizen gotō kujiraryō no zu

1859 – Whale hunting at the island of Goto in Hizen by Utagawa Hiroshige, also referred to as  Andō Hiroshige and Ichiyūsai Hiroshige.

Woodcut, color, ~13.9 x 9.5 in.

Hizen gotō kujiraryō no zu products on Zazzle: poster and much more.

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Two Actors

(Sawamura sōjūrō no soga no jūrō to ichimura takenojō no soga no gorō)

Sawamura Sojuro as Soga Juro and Ichimura Takenojo as Soga Goro.  Two actors, Sawamura Sojurō I (1689-1756) in a kneeling position and Ichimura Takenojō (standing), dancing with a tsuzumi.

Woodcut, hand-colored, lacquer, powdered metal; 12.4 x 5.8 inches; created by Nishimura Shigenaga ca 1726 to 1736

Kabuki Actors: Sôjûrô and Takenojô

Actors can often be identified in Ukiyo-e prints by the personal crests on their costumes. For example, in this print by Nishimura Shigenaga (1697-1756) the kneeling actor wears an orange blossom crest, identifying him as Ichimura Takenojô. Takenojô was the nephew of a proprietor of a prominent kabuki theater in Edo. He eventually gave up acting and became a Buddhist priest. Above him stands Sawamura Sojurô, identified by the “i” crest. Since actor’s crests and names were handed down, they are not always a certain means of identification. (Library of Congress)

Two Actors products on Zazzle: poster and more.

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Cripple Creek, Colorado, September 9, 2011.

Now, I’m not a fan of car racing and wouldn’t recognize the names of most race car drivers, but Jeff Gordon is one that I have heard of.

So when I saw a Facebook share for Jeff Gordon, undercover, taking a car salesman on a test drive, I just had to check it out.

It is hilarious!

Fortunately, it’s not real.  The salesman is an actor and the driver is a stunt driver instead of Jeff Gordon.  The video was professional produced and employed about 75 people in its staging.  The car was a new 2013 Camero — Chevrolet didn’t make the Camero in 2009.  While Jeff Gordon is an excellent driver, he doesn’t do the kind of driving professionally that is seen in the video.  Finally, liability issues would have prevented this from really happening.  The salesman would have had to sign a release in advance.  Otherwise, he would have grounds for major lawsuits against the dealership and production company.

Since I started sharing photos from the Great Depression several years ago, I’ve often been bemused when I see photos that I’m familiar show up some place unexpectedly – and sometimes their use is flat out wrong.  One, for example, is of some kids on a front porch in the Mississippi River Delta – it’s also the image for my Eyes of the Great Depression 003. We were at a state park on the St Francis River and I saw the photo in a new display for a recently renovated school building.  The caption for the photo said, “Children in the Delta outside Parkin, Arkansas, ca. 1915.” The photo was actually taken in July 1936 by Dorothea Lange.

In recent day’s I’ve seen another misuse of an image from the Great Depression.

With this one, the narrative begins “ They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery…..if you had to do this to survive you were “Piss Poor” But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot…..they “didn’t have a pot to piss in” & “were the lowest of the low.”

This narrative is absolute hogwash.  According to Michael Quinion, a British etymologist and writer, “the piece is in its intention merely a mischievous attempt to deceive its readers.”  In his post, Piss-Poor,  Quinion goes on in much more detail and even lays out that the expression may have actually been invented during the Second World War.

The image that is being associated with the piece is that of the family of sharecropper Bud Fields of Hale County Alabama in the summer of 1936.  Fortune magazine had sent  James Agee and Walker Evans south to document lives of cotton sharecroppers for a story.  Their story, never published, was to have been part of a series called “Life and Circumstances.” It was published in book form in 1941 as “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” with sales of only about 600 copies.

In 2005, Fortune published a retrospective article, “The Most Famous Story We Never Told” that included impressions the visit of Agee and Walker left on the three families that were featured. One of the people interviewed was Ivan Fields, a grandson of Bud Fields.

North on Highway 69 in another driving rainstorm, past the turnoff to Mills Hill, through Moundville and all the way into Tuscaloosa, to a prosperous subdivision with wide lawns and big magnolia trees and crape myrtles in blossom. Irvin Fields meets me at the door. Irvin, a grandson of Bud Fields. Relaxing now in a soft recliner in his air-conditioned living room, facing a giant flat-panel TV. Fields joined the Army after high school and left Mills Hill for good. He is head of security at the local hospital, former director of public safety at the University of Alabama, but he grew up a sharecropper’s son in Hale County, and he hasn’t forgotten. He talks late into the evening, talks until his throat goes dry and his voice cracks.

“That mean old guy right there is the landowner,” he says, pointing at a prosperous man in a white summer suit, the first image in my edition of Famous Men. “His name was Watson Tidmore.” He sighs. “You’re from Massachusetts? There is no way in the world that anyone could sit down and convey to you what the times were really like back then. Some of the pictures you saw of my grandfather, which are kind of funny, looked like these people need a bath, looked like they need to get clothes on and dress appropriately, you know? Especially to take a picture. But these people were not very much recovered from the Civil War at that time. They were struggling for a living. What little bit of living that they had, they dug it out of the ground. In Hale County.

“I was born in 1938. I’ve seen boys wear little girls’ dresses when there was predominantly girls in the family and there was nothing else to hand down. I’ve seen kids go to bed hungry. I’ve seen Dad struggling and even crying when he didn’t know where the next meal was going to come from and it was his responsibility to put it on the table. The tenant would harvest the crops, he would gin the cotton, and then they would settle up at the end of the harvest season. I never will forget some of the things I witnessed in this settling-up time of the year. The landowner had the pencil and he had the books. The landowner would say, ‘Well, you didn’t make it this time Bill, you still owe me about $200. Maybe you can make it next year.’

“A lot of people started breaking out of that kind of thing during World War II. Some of the younger people left. Generally the quickest way out of something like that was military. I guess that’s one of the reasons they didn’t have a problem filling the ranks with people from Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi.

“I don’t know of any other way to put it. It is a manner of slavery that existed. That’s all it was. You were enslaved to the landowner that had the money. And there was nowhere else to go. Limited by education, or noneducation. It was just a revolving door for the people back then. And a lot of blacks were in the same situation right along with the whites.”

Desperate times – desperate people.

The way that image is being used online is inappropriate.  Of all people, I certainly can’t be one to say that these public domain images shouldn’t be used.  However, any use should be respectful.  These people were living in hard times and deserve respect.  They also have family and descendants who will likely recognize the photos.

Interestingly, this is not the first time I have come across the James Agee and Walker Evans sharecropper project.  I had a short article last summer related to it, A symbol of the Great Depression–Walker Evans’ photo of Allie Mae Burroughs. Her picture is on the left. Her husband, Floyd Burroughs is the subject of Eyes of the Great Depression 112, scheduled for Friday, September 27.

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Mississippi Delta Children poster is available on Zazzle.

What could go wrong with a title like that?

I was “creating” a product on Zazzle for a coffee cup that would feature an image of an 1863 drawing by Alfred Waud. The product description was going to be:

Civil War – Hooker’s Headquarters.

General Joseph Hooker, tent headquarters, Army of the Potomac, Alfred Waud, March 1863

Well, when I submitted the design and product information, a message popped up telling me that the description was more suited to a PG-13 audience and suggested that I make changes to the description if I wanted a G rating.

It did give me the option to explain why a G rating was appropriate. 

I explained that Joseph Hooker was a civil war general and there was no reason for anything about him to be PG-13.

The product was approved this morning.

Tomorrow is Monday – and I’m not going to be going to work.

Friday was the last day of my regular responsibilities, though I will be going back next week for a couple of nights to run the simulator.  The core part of what I was contracted to do is over and done.

This was my fourth contract since I retired six years and few days ago.  My job, each time, is to work with nuclear power plant operators who are in advancement training to be licensed as reactor operators or senior reactor operators.  At the point where I start, they have been through the training on the systems and components that are controlled from or interface with the control room.  The training I’m involved with is related to normal, abnormal and emergency operation of the plant.

The class that just finished had eight operators in training to be licensed reactor operators and six who were going for senior reactor operator licenses.

I have been working with license classes for a long time. It’s always gratifying when the class finishes successfully, which it almost always does.  The results of this class were particularly gratifying and I’m quite proud of the students.  They worked well together as a class as well as in their individual simulator teams.

If I go back for the next class, it’ll probably be in the winter as that’s when the next class will be at the point where I normally start.

New blog.

I’ve started a new blog that I’m just going to use for posting new Zazzle products.  It’s called Zazzle @ Exit78 and it’s intended to be nothin’ but Zazzle.  I want to be able to post new Zazzle products, but I don’t want to post too much or too often about Zazzle here on Exit78.

Travel Plans.

We often travel after I complete a contract, but we don’t have any specific plans this time.  There are plenty of things that need to be done around here.  For the near term, we’ll probably be doing some middle of the week camping trips in this general area.  Some time later in the year, we’ll likely mosey on up to Wisconsin to see Jessica, Shane, Ciera, and Utah.

Climate.

I still monitor a number of climate related blogs.  The trends and news that I’m seeing still point to anything but global warming.  In fact, the opposite is more likely over the next couple of decades.   “Don’t sell your coat.”

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 Freedom 54 Some rights reserved by jumpinjimmyjava

 Snow “Explore”  Some rights reserved by Luis Hernandez – D2k6.es

Here’s some more interesting, to me, images that I’m using on Zazzle. These were obtained while exploring just to see what I could find.

Matthäus Seutter’s chart to the comets (poster) Hand-colored engraving of text and celestial sphere centered on earth; by Matthäus Seutter, ca. 1742 “Cometa, qui anno Christi 1742 apparuit, ex observationibus, a die 13 Marty usque ad 15 Aprilis”	Arthurian Romance Illuminated page (poster) French medieval manuscript page, ca. 1275-1000. Written in elegant gothic textura by one scribe.	Lest liberty perish from the face of the earth (poster) Design drawing for poster titled “That liberty shall not perish from the earth – buy Liberty Bonds” for the Fourth Liberty Loan during World War I. Drawing shows the Statue of Liberty in ruins with New York City in flames in the background. Artist: Joseph Pennell, created 1918; Inscription: “Watercolor sketch of idea.”
Wahk-tä-ge-li “Gallant Warrior” (poster) Image is from 1839 print by Akermann and Co., London. Karl Bodmer painted the original protrait in 1833. Wahk-tä-ge-li was called “Big Soldier” by Missouri River traders. Yankton Dakota tribe.	1904 Teddy Roosevelt election poster. For President, Theodore Roosevelt, For Vice President, Charles W. Fairbanks; Lithograph by Louis Roesch Co., San Francisco.	The vanishing race—Navaho (poster) Navajos on horseback riding away from photographer. 1904; Edward S. Curtis.
Navajo man (poster) Head-and-shoulders portrait of a Navaho man wrapped in blanket and wearing headband. ca.1904; Edward S. Curtis.	Geronimo (poster) Geronimo, whom Gen. Miles named the “Human Tiger”; “Geronimo is the most terrible name in the history of two hundred years of bloody Indian fighting.  He is now a prisoner of war at Ft. Sill, O. T.”hand-colored photographic print. June 2, 1903	The Custer fight (poster) The Battle of the Little Bighorn, showing Native Americans on horseback in foreground. Charles M. Russell.  ca. 1903
When Sioux and Blackfeet met (poster) Battle between Sioux and Blackfeet Indians. Charles M. Russell. ca. 1902	Pure white star coffee (poster) Advertising poster for “White Star Coffee” showing three frogs, each standing on the back of another, with the topmost frog reaching for a star labeled “Pure.” U.S. Printing Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, ca1899. A Russell-Morgan print.	Forepaugh & Sells Brothers Shows Combined (post cards) The World Famed Hanlon Troupe. Cincinnati & New York : Strobridge Litho. Co., 1899
The Edison concert phonograph (poster)Advertising poster for Edison phonographs showing a man playing a phonograph on a stage before large audience seated in a grand concert hall. Thomas Edison trademark. U.S. Printing Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, ca1899. A Russell-Morgan print.	Seal hunters in Alaska – 1899 (poster)Two native Alaskan people in boat at Glacier Bay.  Photograph by Edward B. Curtis.	Kindred Interests – 1899 (poster)”A union in the interest of humanity – civilization – freedom and peace for all time” Poster showing personifications of America (Columbia and Uncle Sam) and Great Britain (Britannia and John Bull) holding hands in friendship, with vignettes of naval battles.  Poster cites such reasons for “kindred interests” as: English tongue, resources, integrity, valor, colonial success, chivalry, and invincibility. Donaldson Litho Co.