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An image of a vintage Japanese print featuring calligraphy. The left panel shows black stylized calligraphic art resembling a tengu face, while the right panel includes vertical text in black ink

A Senjafuda Joke. (I’m a nerd.)

Want to be on the inside of a very inside joke?

I have a talk about senjafuda, paper seals marked with one’s name or pseudonym pasted at shrines and temples, originally as an act of devotion. The pasting later also became an act of self-promotion or as a contest against priests or other pasters (who can get their name to the highest point on the temple ceiling? and so on), and more stylish senjafuda were created specifically for trading and collecting.

A wooden interior featuring a steep staircase leading to a room with a high, textured ceiling. The ceiling and walls are adorned with numerous senjafuda labels, creating a rustic and patterned aesthetic. Rails are installed along the staircase for support.
Senjafuda pasted inside the Sazaedō in Aizuwakamatsu.

In the 1700s, a samurai named Hagino Kinai Nobutoshi went on pilgrimage on behalf of his lord’s brother, stricken with smallpox. He famously pasted many senjafuda at shrines and temples, legitimizing and popularizing the practice as a person of rank doing this in his official capacity.

A Senjafuda Joke. (I’m a nerd.)
well with a five-pointed star

Abe no Seimei and Seimei Jinja

I was in Kyōto. I was looking up something else on my phone and saw “Seimei Jinja” on the screen map, not too far from my ryokan. My metaphorical antennae immediately pricked, and I knew I had to make a detour.

If you’ve read my Kitsune Tales stories, you might remember Abe no Seimei as an important figure in Japanese folklore. He was a real person; we have plenty of documentation for his life. But it’s likely that not quite all of the feats and attributes said of him — being half human and half kitsune, binding 12 heavenly generals as servants, changing oranges into rats, etc. — are as historical.

Abe no Seimei and Seimei Jinja

Skull: A Halloween-y Prank

I blame my cousin.

While this is not strictly a Halloween story, it’s certainly in the spirits of the season, both macabre and prankster, so I’m going to share it.

In the early 2000s, we purchased an estate property and eventually built a house, where we now live. The property needed a lot of work, from the many piles of trash which needed to be cleared (so large that they photographed from the air as buildings in our property tax assessment and we were being charged for them) to the old farmhouse where I lived mostly alone for a year, which had ancient and damaged wiring so that I had very limited choices regarding electricity, which couldn’t be heated above 56 degrees in the winter with a furnace which could snuff a light at two feet, and which turned out to be a structural death trap the local fire department refused to enter. Also possibly haunted, but that’s another story.

Skull: A Halloween-y Prank
shirts of various sizes and colors folded on wooden table

Swag Sale! Gifts for that dinosaur or kitsune lover and reader.

shirts of various sizes and colors folded on wooden table
sorting remaining inventory for shirts

We all have problems. I need space to store new cool things, and you need gifts for that tricky person on your list.

Here’s a deal that will win for everyone.

I’m running a holiday sale on my kitsune shirts and Cupcake the Dinosaur swag, along with signed paperbacks of your favorite titles for gift-giving. Best of all, I’m a ninja at packing flat-rate boxes — challenge me! — so it’s flat-rate shipping for you. Go ahead and buy an extra shirt or book for yourself, guilt-free.Swag Sale! Gifts for that dinosaur or kitsune lover and reader.

Mrs. Claus - Not the Fairy Tale They Say

Celebrating 2017 — With Loot

list of handwritten creative ideas
I need a bigger fire for all my  irons.

We need to step back sometimes to be able to see the bigger picture.

I had been a little down on myself for not publishing as much as I’d wanted and being behind on my idea list. I have a beefy project list that feels like I’ll never catch up. (I wrote it out as an Idea Debt Inventory for a productivity lesson. Lemme tell ya, that’s simultaneously inspiring — look how much I can create! — and super-depressing.)

But then I started doing the math for this year, and wow, I’ve had a more productive year than I thought. No wonder I felt busy.

Celebrating 2017 — With Loot
youkai phone charms

Youkai Charms

youkai phone charmsOkay, lemme be honest: I have never liked phone charms. I don’t like dangling things which catch and snag and serve no useful purpose (I rarely wear bracelets) and frankly most charms just aren’t that, well, charming.

So you know that these charms have to be adorable, because I kind of want one. Or two. Or a set.

There are five of these available now, and I’m thrilled to see some variation on the usual youkai offerings. Not that I don’t love kitsune and kappa, because I do (especially the older, scarier versions), but because there are more youkai than just the kitsune and kappa, okay?

Youkai Charms