hmmn: musings from the far east(erwood)
Kevin‘s and Nil‘s and James‘ comments on yesterday’s 3D post inspired me to scan a few more of those old 3D negatives I came across, and put together my own poor man’s 3D image. This image is of a graveyard at the Presidio, the old US military base that makes up the northwest corner of San Francisco.
I’m not sure if this one’s entirely successful, but I went ahead and made two desktop wallpapers from a cropped image, if anyone wants to download them:
1024 x 768 (108K)
800 x 600 (72K)
I’ve been hitting the “archives” again, looking at various snaps from years back. The above is from a roll of 3D images taken with a 3D disposable camera from now-defunct 3D Image Technology, Inc. As is probably obvious, that’s San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge behind Naoko, circa December 1998 (I think), as seen from the roof of the old army garrison at Ft. Point. I hacked together a composite in Photoshop to show you a rough approximation of what the processed print looked like (click for larger image):
Today is the Sumida River Fireworks Festival, probably the biggest of the many fireworks festivals held in the Tokyo area during the summer. Certainly it’s also one of the oldest, dating back to 1733. In advance of the festival, Japan real estate giant Mitsui Fudosan published a full-page ad in yesterday’s Yomiuri Shinbun, featuring 16 different postcards in an ukiyo-e iroha-karuta style, all in one way of another exemplifying the sort of “manners” revelers should mind when they go to the festival. (Trivia about Mitsui Fudosan: their investment helped open Tokyo Disneyland in the early 80’s, and they were behind the now-closed Ski Dome in Chiba, the largest indoor ski facility in the world).
Examples of good manners include taking public transportation, taking one’s trash with them, and using the bathroom before you go to the festival, etc. The one I’ve scanned above I thought was particularly cute. It says (roughly) “Be sure to praise equally both the fireworks and your lover as ‘beautiful’.”
Below is Hiroshige’s oft-reproduced but still dazzling woodblock print of the fireworks festival, circa 1856:
