These are reproductions of 1955 ad blotters for Maruzen’s in-house “Athena” ink. They were made for Maruzen’s 2nd World Fountain Pen Fair in March 2011.
Got a set recently from Maruzen in Nihonbashi, Tokyo.
Category Archives: nostalgia
Wearever flattop – 1930s
The pen featured in my last post, but cleaned up and with new sac and J-bar installed.
I couldn’t find a replacement nib so I left the original in.
It’s a very wet writer. I did bend the nib down closer to the feed, and reset nib and feed with hot water but the base metal (I suspect copper) is too malleable and is already bending away from the feed despite my best attempts to write lightly. The spoon tip digs into the paper on some upstrokes too, which is annoying.
Want vintage letterheads?
A sampler pack of vintage letterhead repros is up for grabs in this contest by “Everyday Correspondence” — a blog that extols the epistolary arts and paraphernalia.
Flight and Regeneration
YMCK – Starlight:
Daicon IV video (haven’t I posted this before?) – a legend in itself:
The opening of the Densha Otoko J-drama references this:
Le Lundi au Soleil
or, “Monday in the Sun” as interpreted by Kenzo Saeki. Ah, electronica and kitsch ^_^
As far as I can tell, this track is from a Japanese tribute album to French pop singer Claude François.
More tracks/music videos:
Chanson Populaire
Comme d’habitude (the basis for “My Way”)
Evangelion 1:0 – You Are (Not) Alone
“At last my arm is complete again!”
I enjoyed the new animation in the Evangelion movie — Evangelion 1:0 – You Are (Not) Alone — and let myself indulge in a bit of nostalgia for those memories of when I first watched the original Evangelion series. And I was glad to have the chance to introduce a seminal anime work to the Other Half.
As I recall them, many scenes from the original series were kept – seeing Eva-01’s launch sequence again nearly brought tears to my eyes – but the movie is mostly new animation, particularly after Ramiel turns up.
Of the Angels, Ramiel was one of the most boring (pun intended), being a large floating blue octahedron. As an example of what computer technology had enabled since 1994, Ramiel is now constantly changes forms when firing its Beam o’ Glowy Death(TM). In addition, the old mechanical drill bit from the series has been replaced by a swirling corkscrew that morphs from Ramiel’s bottom apex.
The new movie animation looks better, but then again I’ve only seen the original TV series with its washed-out look so Anno etc could’ve reused Renewal footage for all I know :p
But the whole movie looks consistently new. Contrast with the visually jarring mix of old (1984-6) and new (2005-6) animation in the Zeta Gundam: A New Translation movies.
(Incidentally why didn’t those come here? Bandai/Sunrise wanted too much money for screening fees?)
Some deliberate discrepancies mysteries:
– The numbering of the Angels has changed. Sachiel, the first angel to appear in the series, is the 3rd Angel, but in the movie he’s identified as the 4th.
– Lilith is wearing a mask like Sachiel’s face in the movie, but in the series she has one with seven eyes on it.
– The entire moon sequence at the end of the movie. There’s another Lilith-like being?!?
Was hoping to watch the trailer for the second movie at the end, and was disappointed that the preview seems to have been cut from the prints at both the Cathay and at Cineleisure. Odd.
Thankfully, the Net provides. Watch the trailer here. (More mysteries!)
The movie brochure didn’t make it here either. None of the merchandise did. As expected 
Lobby Cards – the Leonard Schrader Collection
From the homepage:
The Collection consists of 8,462 vintage lobby-cards and 5,000 related items – many the sole surviving traces of long-lost silent films – acquired by late screenwriter/filmmaker Leonard Schrader over the course of 27 years. While Schrader preserved his collection with painstaking care in hundreds of 13×15 photographer’s albums – or “binders” – mysteriously he left no written inventory or index of this vast archive’s contents.
Vanity Fair has a slideshow comprising 36 cards from his collection.
Vocaloid 2; Value from Efficiency; User-Generated Content distribution
I’m still impressed with the abilities of the Vocaloid 2 software (found via Boing Boing). Put in a melody and lyrics, and the software generates singing.
It sounds pretty good. Try this sample:
The opera sequence from Final Fantasy 6 — one of the most touching sequences from the best RPG I’ve ever played.
Watching this brought back good memories of the experience playing the game, and that’s partly what makes Vocaloid memorable for me.
The singing isn’t perfect — one comment remarked that the singer sounded like she’d a cold — but this is a technological factor. As coding gets better, so will the voices. But it may not matter — most people are willing to accept less-than-ideal quality media in certain contexts, compression codecs affect sound quality, and when you’re listening to music in a subway train, bus or car you can’t tell anyway.
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The value of Vocaloid lies in how it flows with the trend for more user-generated content. It fits in nicely with existing distribution chains for user-generated content. Make a song with Vocaloid, overlay on a video file and upload to YouTube.
(Does it still make sense to call UGC a “trend”? Isn’t it already here and a part of our lived experiences?)
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I’m also struck by how YouTube has become a music player although it began as a video-sharing site. This serendipitous use has been driven by the sheer ease of use and easy availability via laptops and widespread broadband.
Compare this with how people rarely used CD-based gaming consoles like the Playstation to play music. Clearly it was silly to turn on the player and a TV set to play music when it was much more efficient to use a CD player. Even a Discman with speakers plugged in was a preferable alternative.
So functionality is nice, but if it’s not efficient relative to current alternatives the functionality won’t add much value to the user.
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Although Vocaloid is aimed at otaku, there must be similar groups that would buy such software.
Let’s consider characteristics of the otaku audience — predominantly teenagers, tech-savvy, relatively affluent and of course, a little obsessive.
Hmm… has anyone tried packaging Vocaloid for Christian rock fans?
What happened to our National Day Songs?
This year’s National Day Song, like its recent predecessors, is forgettable. (What’s it called? Uhh… “There’s No Place I’d Rather Be”). As if admitting its own absence of originality, the lyrics and arrangement both sound like a bowdlerised “Home“.The only thing that makes this year’s song a little more memorable is that two YES 93.3 DJs have parodied it:
Their version is more likely to resonate with the public.
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What happened to our National Day Songs?
Older songs like “Stand Up For Singapore”, “Five Stars Arising” and “We Are Singapore” are jingoistic, but they gave the distinct impression that they were written to be sung by a mass of people. They were meant to be jubilant and defiant at the same time, with simple language and frequently repeated choruses set to rousing arrangements.
This was expected, if you consider that National Day Songs were meant as rallying symbols for Singaporeans — avenues to celebrate our unity.
In recent years however National Day Songs have lost all flavour, sounding like the bland tinsel songs-of-the-hour that thrive on our pop radio stations.
Is this the unintended outcome of some initially well-intentioned move to make the songs more contemporary? 1998’s “Home” could probably be considered the first of this new wave of gentler, more sentimental National Day Songs. “Home” is a memorable work, but its successors have all failed to capture the imagination and memories of Singaporeans in comparison.
I’m particularly concerned with the content of the songs. Lyrics always suggest a singer in a particular context. Where previous National Day Song lyrics implied a community in Singapore celebrating its unity and togetherness, now they are sung as if by isolated individuals comparing Singapore with other countries.
It seems to me that the target audience for the older songs was broader, encompassing all Singaporeans. The new songs however, with their emphasis on individual belonging and staying in Singapore despite having experienced life abroad, appear to be geared towards a certain class of Singaporeans which constitute a minority here. Growing, perhaps, but still a minority. The majority of Singaporeans would probably not be able to identify with the globe-trotting personae of these songs.
I wonder if this isn’t detrimental to Singapore in the long run.
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei （さよなら絶望先生）
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (So Long, Despair Teacher) is irreverent, sarcastic and crammed with anime in-jokes and otaku references.
What I like the most is the old-style nostalgia that the series unashamedly uses, especially in the title cards and the kanji. Another subversion there!
Try the first 8 minutes of the first episode on Youtube:
The reference to Osamu Dazai in the Episode 3 opening cracked me up.
The Episode 4 opening. NSFW (some disturbing bits), but graphically brilliant.
writing without rhythm 
