Tag: Folklore
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Okame
Okame Okame is the name of the mask depicting a young woman with a small, upturned nose and large, round cheeks. It is also the name of the wife of the master carpenter who built the main hall of the Senbon Shakado Temple in Kyoto, where I saw this beautifully illuminated mask. The story goes…
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Les accordéonistes
Les accordéonistes Are they trying to scare us away,this motley lot of advancing orange,casting their long-drawn-out shadows forward,while drawing protracted cries from their accordions? No! It’s the ‘Festival l’Accordéon Plein Pot’! Photo of the week: ‘Festival l’Accordéon Plein Pot’, Saint Quentin la Poterie, France 2017
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No. 13
No. 13 I have friends in Delhi living on the 23rd floor of a big apartment building. Once, when taking the elevator up to their flat, I noticed that there was no button for no.13. The column of figures jumped from 12 to 14. There was no 13th floor! So actually my friends are living…
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Via crucis
Via crucis or: the missing fingers Religion can be a true source of inspiration for Art with a capital A – countless examples can be found across the centuries in all the various religions.It can also provide inspiration for living folklore and the religious kitsch that goes hand in hand with it – of which…
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Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras This is again the weekend of the big Mardi Gras Parade in Sydney, attracting masses of LGBTQIAP people from all over Australia and the world. Two years ago I happened to be there with my wife, two simple H’s looking on in amazement. ….. Mardi non, Gras oui ….. LGBTQIAP: LesbianGayBisexualTranssexualQueerIntersexual (whatever that may…
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Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas In Holland, that tiny country by the North Sea where I grew up, a white Christmas is a very rare occurrence. One can dream of it, but the reality is generally one of cold and grey gloominess. Maybe favourable for a state of mind that makes one long for the coming of light…
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Threatened with extinction
Threatened with extinction Nuns openly on the street, that truly isn’t a common sight anymore in Europe! With the exception maybe of places like Rome, or – as in the photo above – Krakow. Rome because of the Vatican and the Papal throne; Krakow as the place from where Archbishop Wojtyla was called in 1978…
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Kind-hearted nationalism
Kind-hearted nationalism Swiss alpenhorns are relics of the past. Just like the smoke signals of Red Indians, they once were used to communicate swiftly with inhabitants of nearby valleys and mountain slopes, long before the invention of the telephone. But their main purpose seems to have been for herdsmen to call their free-grazing cattle back…
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The friendly army
The friendly army What an impressive army of identical little figures! That was my first reaction when I came across them on the grounds of the Buddhist Hase-dera Temple in Kamakura. On closer inspection, however, some of the faces do display slightly different features. So there must have been a few different moulds used to…
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Wishful thinking
Wishful thinking I wonder if I should reconsider my stand on religion somewhat. In earlier posts of this blog I have spoken – illustrating my point with pictures – of the ‘folklore of faith’, implying that apart from its popular forms, there is also a more serious and fundamental side to religion. The latter would…
καιρός remembered 