#tchochkes

[newyorkthegoldenage]

In 1957, Walker Evans shot scenes of shops and street vendors on the Lower East Side for a Fortune magazine feature called "The Pitch Direct." These are some of the photos. All are from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[zooophagous]

do u ever think about how when The China Syndrome (movie about a nuclear accident, very similar to real life three mile island accident) came out all these guys who owned nuclear power plants were calling it slander and inaccurate and impossible because an accident like that could NEVER happen in real life and then Literally Exactly twelve days after it came out three mile island happened. i think about it every damn day.

Haven't heard of it or seen it I'm afraid. All in all nuclear energy does tend to be cleaner and safer than traditional coal based energy (and even tends to put out less radioactive pollution somehow lol) but when it does fuck up it does so in a big headline making way.

Don't know if I'll look up the film or not but I do find real nuclear history fascinating and deeply sad.

[hallohartje]

spent the evening looking through my little poem manuscript and... i really do love and believe in it!!

too bad the poetry scene requires you to shell out $20-$40 to submit it to a competition where you will hope to win the lottery or be disappointed when you find out you didn't get chosen when the results get announced on twitter

[spongki]

13/2/21 4:27 pm

[copperbadge]

A very important question about the history of Askazer-Shivadlakia has just occured to me. Have they ever found themselves at war with the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, and if so, who won? (Since I'm not allowed to post links in here, look up "The Mouse That Roared" on Wikipedia if you need context.)

I desperately want to take this ask seriously but first I have to say that all I can think about is Jerry saying scornfully, "Grand Fenwick isn't real, it's from that book," while folding his hands in his lap and looking slightly smug that he has read The Mouse That Roared. "It's not like Askazer-Shivadlakia or Ruritania."

I did look it up and the Duchy of Grand Fenwick is only three miles by five, making it as wide as Galveston Island but about one-fifth of its length (hello BOIs and IBCs). Now, when I was inventing Askazer-Shivadlakia I didn't have a super strong handle on just how small European micronations tend to be, so I actually made it kinda large. Monaco, on which it was meant to be based, is about half the size of my neighborhood in Chicago (0.78 square miles to 1.58 square miles). Askazer-Shivadlakia stretches from Menton in France to Ventimiglia in Italy along the coast, and from the Ligurian sea up the French-Italian border, tapering to a point just south of Geneva. I think it might actually be bigger than some European countries (well, bigger than Vatican City and Monaco for sure) but shh.

Wikipedia says the Duchy of Grand Fenwick lies in the Northern Alps, so I like to think they share a disputed border with Askazer-Shivadlakia and have been at war with them for centuries over it without either side ever sending an army to fight said war. Grand Fenwick says Askazer-Shivadlakia is too cowardly to invade and the Shivadh reply that they'd invade but it's so small and remote they can't find it. The actual border dispute is entirely between Francois Jones, a Shivadh dairy farmer, and John Belotti, a sheep farmer from the Duchy. The fence between these two farms demarcates the entire Fenwick-Shivadh border, and Jones and Belotti have been fighting over the ten-foot span of grazing land on said border for fifty years. If they could each raise an army they would.

At some point when he feels everyone could use a nice party or an excuse to go touring, Gregory is going to call up whoever is ruling the Duchy now (who he was definitely at school with in Switzerland) and suggest they formally broker peace and have a peace-signing treaty at a beautiful chalet-spa he knows of in the area. Make a weekend out of it, hold a parade, maybe co-sponsor some sort of feast. Gregory is a serious young man with an MBA and a high political office but he also knows what his people want, which is to be entertained and amused.

(This novel: definitely Gregory and Eddie uncovering a star-crossed romance between the children of the two farmers, who have secretly been teaching each other to spin wool and make cheese.)

Anyway once the peace treaty is signed and Gregory and Eddie return to Fons-Askaz they are greeted with a banner informing them that the people of Fons-Askaz in their absence have consulted with Prince Noah and Princeps Ioanna and declared His Majesty "King Gregory the Peaceable". Gregory immediately has a commemorative coin minted (Gregory also knows his people want to sell useless tchochkes to clueless tourists).

An unofficial side poll declared Eddie "King Theophile the Friend of Farmers" because there is not a dairy farmer in the country that Eddie hasn't bought cheese from. Eddie, on discovering this, is so touched he cries a little.

[bonefall]

Oooo could we see some clanmew terms of endearment? 👀

I tend to keep these very loose, because I like coming up with terms of endearment that are very personal to individuals. For example, Willowpelt calls Sorrelpaw "Kbkbeeb," which roughly translates to "Little Buzzer" because of how much she loves bugs.

Romantic/attraction terms

Attractive cat (WindClan, ThunderClan) = Niaa (Fallow doe, or a fallow stag without antlers)

Attractive cat (ShadowClan) = Skubi Yaywi (Mushroom Bright)

Attractive cat (RiverClan) = Iga (Threespine Stickleback)

Attractive cat (SkyClan) = Gimmi (unwearable trinket, a small human object, an thing you find somewhere that is mostly valuable as a decoration, tchochke.)

Ardor-Crush = Babipabr (Heart-will-beat + will-pummel) This one has a bit of a connotation of "you're going to get pummeled by this."

Admirer/Suitor = Ipfa (Peacock butterfly)

And a few examples of some 'generic' lovey wuvvy terms used between partners;

Stinky/Herb Robert = Ssfog

Berry = Lepe

Linnet = Nanarree

Shiny Stone/Pearl = Rrihi

Platonic terms

Buddy = Ukum (Lichen, generic. Someone who sticks to you.)

Friend = Simra

Enjoyment-Crush = Borrume (Pelt + Same + Contraction) This is someone who you're spending a lot of time with but you're not romantic with. Infatuation phase of a friendship

[lgbtqiads9]

harujuku ziyal yassss idk I think she should be a maximalist queen she loves tchochkes and trinkets and keychains and clips and beads and things

[cannibalcaprine]

Look I got trinkets

ooh! bits and baubles! tchochkes!

[daltongraham]

sigh

Oh my GOSH that was hard.

My dad is downsizing (again) into a different retirement community. (He feels a huge pressure of The Future; is convinced that by next year he will be incapacitated and unable to do something like a Big Move. There is no actual evidence this is the case, but I'm honoring his premonition and supporting all this.)

We just did a zoom where we went through all my mom's old tchochkes. My mom had exquisite taste and had collected a bunch of beautiful glass and metal...things. Little pyramids and globes and boxes and whatnots. We did a culling of this collection once, when he moved 6 years ago, a year after my mom passed. Now we needed to do another one, because he won't have much space in the new place.

It was so hard not to get choked up doing this. I mean, I know, going through a beloved dead person's stuff is always hard. It's universal. Doesn't help, it still hurts. I had to say "no" as in "get rid of it" to gobs of little things that I agree with mom are beautiful, because dad needs to get rid of stuff and I won't have any place to put all that when he passes. But I was strong and didn't lose it and vetoed way more than I said we had to keep.

I'm in this weird place in life where I'm much more willing to shed than to acquire. A lot of stuff--and by that I don't just mean physical things--just doesn't matter to me as much as it used to. Like. I may never get my ears repierced. It's a pain to keep clean and infection-free and the earrings are fiddly and I know it's prettier to have earrings but gosh, I just don't care that much. Unfortunately that attitude didn't help much with today's exercise.

Nostalgia hurts sucks and moving forward is more important. And in the end, is all we can do. I asked dad to take a picture of the things on the table that we're giving away and then I just have to let that all go. (I also have to let go that I'll never see that house again that he's in right now; I'll never sit on the lanai with him again and look out on the vast view he has and watch a thunderstorm.) Ugh. Loss is hard.

[cicaklah]

I should have named her tchochke for how much she likes to be on the shelf

[scenegraph]

scenegraph reviews: smp kit makes pose roll.exe (part 2: size comparisons/etc)

(part one is thisaway)

helter skelter

needless to say, gluing down the antennae really helped her out.  she still does not pass the Sit Test.  it should be possible, but her waist really doesn’t like it and will pop loose while i’m trying to adjust the pose.  however, she does get the Tony Hawk Pro Skater Seal of Approval.

i never took a picture of it because lol lmao she balances perfectly well with the antennae fix she doesn’t need it unless you want to pose her using floatshoes, but she does come with a nicely themed stand, which plugs into her button!  so it’s both pretty unnoticeable when it’s not in and hey, cool, she has a stand.  good thinkin’ there.

aaaand some size comparisons, so you can see how she’ll fit in with other figures!  L-R: picco neemo S, figma mumi, smp roll, kotobukiya classic roll

(at this point, i forgot that the reason kotobukiya classic roll is consigned to the tchochke shelf instead of hanging out with the other figures is that she loves to fall apart without warning.  really, really loves it.  i’ve gotten so spoiled by megami device kaede, when nearly a decade separates the two sculpts lmao)

aaaanyway.  L-R: hairdorable, nendoroid, smp roll, calico critter/sylvanian family older sister

now that she’s together and my thumbs have recovered, i am super happy that i have this lil roll!  she’s everything i needed to tide me over until kotobukiya roll.exe returns from prototype purgatory, and at such a small size it’ll be easy to display future navis in the series should people buy this first set. 

i fully expect series two to be half taken up by the insanely conspicuously absent usual suspects of blooz and fort.  but at the same time, their being missing here (in favor of gutsman and fireman!  this is really an exe episode 8 collection, not a bn1 collection!) really tells me that bandai has more plans for this series?  and that is good, because there are a lot of navi designs i love that i would be incredibly happy to have a smol, posable representation of.  like elecman!  and toadman!  and aquaman!  and medi!  and RING PLEASE CAN WE GET THAT FAR

i know i just got done outlining how these things are a bit of a pain to get together and you shouldn’t pay scalper prices for ‘em considering the unadvertised work and unincluded tools you’ll need to be ready to utilize, but IF THEY DO REAL WELL THINK OF THE NAVI DESIGNS WE COULD GET WHO AIN’T NEVER HAD A FIGURE BEFORE

[lavenderprose]

Man the bar for comedic genius is set so low for normies. A lady in the tchochkes store says 'This frog looks like Kevin from Home Alone' and her husband laughs and says 'You're so funny'. I say 'Izzy Hands is Stede and Ed's intimacy counselor, he sits in the corner and watches them fuck to make sure they're doing it right' and my wife says 'Please stop speaking I don't know who these characters are' justice for ME

[pheonix-from-the-trashes]

I WENT TO BUY TCHOCHKES FOR MY FAMILY AND THE TOURIST SHOP I WAS IN PLAYED “THERE CAN BE MIRACLES” FROM PRINCE OF EGYPT AS A CHRISTMAS SONG. FOLLOWED IMMEDIATELY BY A COVER OF LEONARD COHEN’S “HALLELUJAH”

YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS SHIT UP

[chocolatechipkraken]

I'm still working out the design on this one. Haven't decided whether her stone face is part of her body or a mask (I have no idea what would be under it).

This creature tends to a mysterious hedge maze in an abandoned mansion. She is a vain and haughty woman with the taste and technological understanding of any given grandma. She speaks with Shakespearean dialect, laughs like an old anime noblewoman, and drinks everything out of a teapot. Behind her prickly exterior she is immensely suffering from a 'hedgehog's dilemma' and concealing a traumatic past (I don't know what yet). Indeed, she desperately needs therapy but is too proud and insecure to admit she does. She is incredibly dramatic and believes in an old-fashioned sense of chivalry, leading to her having extreme reactions to her emotions. For instance, upon finding out that Red Rose Tea had stopped putting little figurines into their teaboxes, she would track down the company's CEO and challenge them to a duel to the death. She quite likes collecting kitschy little knickknacks and tchochkes. Her stinger either makes people fall in love or makes roses grow out of whatever it stabs, I haven't decided yet.

[oreganosbaby]

literally had the thought this morning "Roman's dick is just purely ornamental, like a tchochke," and I guess that's a bit correct. Kind of goes with him taking that dick pic and everything.

[copperbadge]

Prowly is camowflaged. 

[ID: A photo of my tchochke cabinet, showing two glass vases full of pysanky eggs, sitting behind a carved wooden children’s toy of a dog and a tree. In one of the vases, one of the pysanky eggs turns out to be Prowly, a small egg-shaped resin owl.]