#Paper Bowl Manufacturer

[carmapapercup]

Paper Salad Bowl - Salad Bowl Manufacturer - Carma Paper Cup

Carma offers an exclusive collection of eco-friendly paper salad bowl in India. As leading manufacturers in Morbi, we provide top-quality paper bowls.

[ishwara1]

Quenching Thirst Responsibly with Paper Glasses in Noida

Hey there, thirsty folks of Noida! Are you tired of seeing plastic cups pile up in landfills and clutter our beautiful city? Well, fear not, because Ishwara has arrived to shake things up and offer a refreshing solution to our plastic problem!

Let me introduce you to Ishwara—a brand that's not just about providing a convenient way to enjoy your favourite beverages but also about making a positive impact on our environment. Ishwara's mission is simple yet powerful: to offer eco-friendly paper glasses that are as kind to the planet as they are to your thirst.

Always in the heart of Nature 

 you're out and about in paper glass in India, craving a cool drink on a hot day. Instead of reaching for a plastic cup that will end up polluting our streets and waterways, you can now choose Ishwara's paper glasses. Made from biodegradable materials, these cups break down naturally over time, leaving behind no harmful traces. Plus, they're recyclable and compostable, so you can sip guilt-free knowing you're making a difference.

But Ishwara isn't just another brand selling cups—it's a movement. It's about inspiring change and showing that small actions can have a big impact. With every sip from an Ishwara paper glass in India,, you're not just hydrating yourself; you're taking a stand against plastic pollution and supporting a more sustainable future for Noida and beyond.

Join us save our environment 

What sets Ishwara apart is its commitment to quality and innovation. Each paper glass is meticulously crafted to ensure durability and functionality, so you can enjoy your drink without worrying about leaks or spills. And with a range of sizes available, from small coffee cups to large party glasses, Ishwara has something for every occasion.

But perhaps the best part of choosing the best paper glass in Noida is the sense of pride that comes with it. By supporting this local brand, you're not only making a positive impact on the environment but also contributing to the growth of our community. Ishwara isn't just a brand; it's a symbol of our collective commitment to creating a cleaner, greener future for generations to come.

So, the next time you're in need of a drink in Noida, why not choose the best paper glass in Noida? Together, let's raise our glasses to a brighter, more sustainable tomorrow. So guys are you ready!

[ishwara01]

Disposable Food Containers

Check out these handy disposable food containers for easy meals on the go. They keep your food fresh and are good for the environment too. Perfect for busy days, you can say goodbye to washing up and enjoy hassle-free, eco-friendly dining with our disposable food containers – making life convenient and thoughtful.

[donapaperplatemachine]

Dona Plate Making Machine

A “dona plate making machine” typically refers to a machine used for manufacturing disposable plates and bowls, often made from materials like paper, thermocol (polystyrene foam), or leaves (such as palm or banana leaves). These machines are commonly used in the production of disposable tableware for various purposes like serving food at parties, events, or in street food stalls, and they are popular because they are cost-effective and environmentally friendly.

The process of making paper plate making machine with such a machine typically involves: Material Loading: Raw material (usually rolls of paper, thermocol sheets, or leaves) is loaded into the machine.Printing (Optional): If desired, the machine may have an option for printing designs or logos on the plates.

Die Cutting: The machine uses a die cutting process to cut the material into the desired plate or bowl shape.

Shaping and Forming: The cut material is then shaped and formed into the specific design of a plate or bowl. In the case of paper, this might involve heating and pressing to achieve the desired shape.

Drying (if needed): Some materials, like thermocol, may require a drying process to set their shape.

Stacking and Packaging: Once the plates or bowls are formed and dried, they are usually stacked and packaged for distribution.

These machines come in various sizes and capacities, and their complexity can vary depending on the type of material they are designed to process and the specific features they offer. Some machines are manual and require more human intervention, while others are automated for higher production rates.

Raw Material Loading: The machine is loaded with rolls or sheets of paper material, which can be in the form of paper rolls, paper sheets, or pre-cut paper circles. The choice of raw material can vary, but it is typically food-grade paper.

Paper Feeding: The machine has a mechanism to feed the paper into the manufacturing process. The paper is usually fed in a continuous manner.

Molding: The machine uses heat and pressure to mold the paper into the shape of the dona (paper plate or bowl). It has specific molds or dies for creating different sizes and designs of donas.

Cutting: Once the paper is molded into the dona shape, the machine cuts it to the required size. This can include cutting excess paper and shaping the edges of the dona.

Embossing or Printing (Optional): Some advanced machines may have embossing or printing capabilities to add designs, patterns, or branding information to the paper donas. This step is not always included, and it depends on the machine’s features and the manufacturer’s requirements.

Drying and Stacking: Depending on the design and material used, the automatic paper plate making machine may go through a drying process to remove any moisture. After drying, the machine may stack the finished donas, making them ready for packaging.

Packaging: The manufactured paper donas are typically stacked and packaged for distribution. Packaging can vary, but it is often in bundles or cartons.

Paper Dona Making Machines come in different sizes and capacities, ranging from small, manually operated machines suitable for small-scale production to large, automated machines for mass production. The choice of machine depends on the production volume and specific requirements of the manufacturer.

[uwmspeccoll]

Typography Tuesday

Today, we complete the initials from Some Examples of the Work of American Designers, edited and arranged by J. M. Bowles. Shown here from top to bottom are:

A - Ralph Fletcher Seymour

C - Walter D. Teague

M - Guernsey Moore

O - Frederic Goudy

P - Charles E. Howell

T - Egbert G. Jacobson

W - Carlton D. Ellinger

Y - Bruce Rogers

Some Examples of the Work of American Designers was printed in Philadelphia by Edward Stern & Co. for Dill & Collins Co. Papermakers in 1918 on thirty styles of paper manufactured by Dill & Collins Co in Philadelphia.

View our previous post on initials from this volume.

View our other Typography Tuesday posts.

[fatehbaz]

Indigenous genocide and removal from land and enslavement are prerequisites for power becoming operationalized in premodernity, a way in which subjects get (what Wynter names) “selected” or “dysselected” from geography and coded into colonial possession through dispossession. The color line of the colonized was not merely a consequence of these structures of colonial power or a marginal effect of those structures; it was/is a means to operationalize extraction (therefore race should be considered as foundational rather than as periphery to the production of those structures and of global space). Richard Eden, in the popular 1555 publication Decades of the New World, compares the people of the “New World” to a blank piece of “white paper” on which you can “paynte and wryte” whatever you wish. “The Preface to the Reader” describes the people of these lands as inanimate objects, blank slates [...]. [Basically, "Man" is white, while nonwhite people are reduced an aspect of the landscape, a resource.] Wynter suggests that we [...] consider 1452 as the beginning of the New World, as African slaves are put to work on the first plantations on the Portuguese island of Madeira, initiating the “sugar–slave” complex - a massive replantation of ecologies and forced relocation of people [...]. Wynter argues that the invention of the figure of Man in 1492 as the Portuguese travel to the Americas instigates at the same time “a refiguring of humanness” in the idea of race. This refiguring of slaves trafficked to gold mines is borne into the language of the inhuman [...].

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The natal moment of the 1800 Industrial Revolution, [...] [apparently] locates Anthropocene origination in [...] the "new" metabolisms of technology and matter enabled by the combination of fossil fuels, new engines, and the world as market. [...] The racialization of epistemologies of life and nonlife is important to note here [...]. While [this industrialization] [...] undoubtedly transformed the atmosphere with [...] coal [in the nineteenth century], the creation of another kind of weather had already established its salient forms in the mine and on the plantation. Paying attention to the prehistory of capital and its bodily labor, both within coal cultures and on plantations that literally put “sugar in the bowl” (as Nina Simone sings) [...]. The new modes of material accumulation and production in the Industrial Revolution are relational to and dependent on their preproductive forms in slavery [...].

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Catherine Hall’s project Legacies of British Slave-Ownership makes visible the complicity in terms of structures of slavery and industrialization that organized in advance the categories of dispossession that are already in play and historically constitute the terms of racialized encounter of the Anthropocene. In 1833, Parliament finally abolished slavery in the British Caribbean, and the taxpayer payout of £20 million in “compensation” [paid by the government to slave owners] built the material, geophysical (railways, mines, factories), and imperial infrastructures of Britain and its colonial enterprises and empire. As the project empirically demonstrates, these legacies of colonial slavery continue to shape contemporary Britain. A significant proportion of funds were invested in the railway system connecting London and Birmingham (home of cotton production and [...] manufacturing for plantations), Cambridge and Oxford, and Wales and the Midlands (for coal). Insurance companies flourished and investments were made in the Great Western Cotton Company, for example, and in cotton brokers, as well as in big colonial land companies in Canada (Canada Land Company) and Australia (Van Diemen’s Land Company) and a number of colonial brokers. Investments were made in the development of metal and mineralogical technologies [...].

The slave–sugar–coal nexus both substantially enriched Britain and made it possible for it to transition into a colonial industrialized power [...]. The slave trade [...] fashioned the economic conditions (and institutions, such as the insurance and finance industries) for industrialization. Slavery and industrialization were tied by the various afterlives of slavery in the form of indentured and carceral labor that continued to enrich new emergent industrial powers from both the Caribbean plantations and the antebellum South. Enslaved “free” African Americans predominately mined coal in the corporate use of black power or the new “industrial slavery,” [...].

---

The labor of the coffee - the carceral penance of the rock pile, “breaking rocks out here and keeping on the chain gang” (Nina Simone, Work Song, 1966), laying iron on the railroads - is the carceral future mobilized at plantation’s end (or the “nonevent” of emancipation). [...]

[T]he racial circumscription of slavery predates and prepares the material ground for Europe and the Americas in terms of both nation and empire building - and continues to sustain it.

---

All text above by: Kathryn Yusoff. "White Utopia/Black Inferno: Life on a Geologic Spike". e-flux Journal Issue #97. February 2019. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Text within brackets added by me for clarity. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[youryurigoddess]

Aziraphale’s secret investigation and overlooked Clues

Remember this frame from Good Omens S02E06? Apparently Aziraphale had been using the empty carton box brought by Jim to store things in. It became a new home to at least two out of three “Lost Quartos” — the supposedly lost Shakespeare plays briefly but hilariously mentioned in the Good Omens book — as well as a very mysterious legal document.

Thought probably half of the Good Omens analysts here, including the ever so wonderful @fuckyeahgoodomens, who managed to find some information about the deceased John Gibson from New Cumnock (1855 - 1905).

Unfortunately the most interesting thing about this early 20th century provincial postmaster was his youngest child James (1894 - 1973), a quite famous stage (West End!) and film actor immortalized on screen in The Master of Ballantrae (1962), Witch Wood (1964) and Kidnapped (1963).

After that particular discovery the fandom-wide search seemingly led nowhere and the topic died a premature death.

And I almost figured it out seven months ago.

“But Yuri, you’re so clever. How can somebody as clever as you be so stupid?”, you probably want to shout across a busy London street at this point. Well, let me tell you. Much like Aziraphale, I'm blindingly intelligent for about thirty seconds a day. I do not get to choose which seconds and they are not consecutive.

Only tonight the stars have aligned in an ineffable way.

For those of you who don’t follow this account, some time ago I’ve realized that John Gibson isn’t the only testator whose estate was being investigated by Aziraphale right before The Whickber Street Traders and Shopkeepers Association monthly meeting.

If you watch S2 finale closely enough, you should notice that Crowley not only stress cleans Aziraphale’s bookshop — he also goes through the books and papers on his desk between the last three angels leaving the bookshop and Maggie and Nina’s intervention. A seemingly permanent arrangement of the props post-shooting, visible in detail both on Radio Times tour and SFX magazine photo shoot, sheds even more light on this detail.

The close-ups published after S2 release are legible enough to refer us to a much more prominent historical figure, Josiah Wedgwood (1730 – 1795) — an English potter, entrepreneur and abolitionist. Founding the Wedgwood company in 1759, he developed improved pottery bodies by systematic experimentation, and was the leader in the industrialisation of the manufacture of European pottery.

Long story short, I transcribed the handwritten pages abandoned on Aziraphale’s desk, found out the source and the full text of what could be identified as Wedgwood’s last will and testament, took a walk to visit his Soho workshop, and proceeded to write a lengthy meta analysis about it.

I was today’s years old when I realized that there’s something else connecting those two dead British men.

The Scottish Post Office Directory of 1903 recorded John Gibson from New Cumnock as a “stationer and china dealer” (above) operating from the shop located in the town’s post office building.

Indeed, a close look at his post office shop window in the Henderson Building (below, bottom left) reveals an artful display of fine china and pottery next to postcards printed by Gibson.

There are multiple ways to connect this surprising link with possible S3 plot points, obviously, but it’s getting late, so let’s just name the two most important ones.

You’ve probably heard of the Holy Grail, maybe from Monty Python or Good Omens S01E03 1941 flashback. Depending on the version of the story, if can be a cup, a chalice, a bowl, or a saucer — but almost always a dish or a vessel connected personally, physically and metaphysically to Jesus (unless you’re partial to Wolfram von Eschenbach’s idea that the Grail was a stone, the sanctuary of the neutral angels who took neither side during Lucifer's rebellion).

A slightly more obscure dish related to the Son of God appears in the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Revelation as a vital part of His Second Coming. The Seven Bowls (or cups, or vials) of God’s Wrath are supposed to be poured out on the wicked and the followers of the Antichrist by seven angels:

Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, “Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.” So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.

The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing died that was in the sea.

The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say, “Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve!” And I heard the altar saying, “Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are your judgments!”

The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.

The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds.

The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east. And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.  (“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”) And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found. And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people; and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe.

[fouryearsofshades]

hi! do you have any information on how hanfu were traditionally washed and stored? thank you :)

First, sorry that it has been so long. Then, sorry that it is a short answer. Hope it is alright.

Expensive clothes were not washed. In the old days they used a lot of plant dyes and those things discoloured when they came in contact with water. Modern plant dyes are slightly better due to the fixative used in dying but the colour still faded with every wash. Hence, people in the old days used to wear layers to avoid dirtied their fancy clothes with sweat.

Clothes can be scented with something called 熏笼/Xūnlóng (lit. "smoke cage").

It is usually made from bamboo, but rich people could have them made from porcelain, like this one from the Three Kingdoms period.

A book on incense from the Song dynasty, 洪氏香谱/Hóng shì xiāngpǔ (Hong's Book of Fragrance), recorded the method of scenting clothes: first placed a bowl of hot water to moisturize the clothes, then smoke the clothes with incense.

Sometimes clothes could be washed separately.

护领/Hùlǐng (lit. "Collar protector". They are usually white in colour) were often detachable so people only needed to wash that instead of the whole clothes. It could also be made from paper.

Those type of embroidered/painted collars from Song dynasty were attached separately, so it was possible that they were removed while the body of the clothes were washed separately.

People usually washed clothes in water with the aid of a 捣衣杵/dǎoyī chǔ or 洗衣杵/xǐyī chǔ 搓衣板/cuō yī bǎn wash stick and/or a washboard.

The earliest type of of soap recorded being used was 草木灰/cǎomù huī (wood ash). Other plant based soaps were also used, such as 皂荚/zàojiá (Gleditsia sinensis, black locust), 无患子/wúhuànzi (Sapindus saponaria, soapberries), 茶箍/chágū（the dregs from pressing oil from camellia seeds plus hay) etc.

There were also records of potassium soap. Those soaps however were usually in liquid form and often used in fabric manufacture [我国古代的洗涤剂].

猪胰子/Zhū yízi Pig pancreas was also used. 白国斌/Bái Guóbīn (in 2021) wrote how they made pig pancreas soap when he was young - pasted the pig pancreas, then dried and powdered it. Later mix with alkaline water and made into ball to air dry.

澡豆/Zǎodòu was made from the combination of powdered pig pancreas, bean powder and other herbs. There are many recipes, such as a recipe by 孙思邈/Sūn Sīmiǎo from Tang dynasty includes 16 materials. They were also known as 胰子/Yízi.

Aromatic herbs and other xiang (fragrant things) could also be added into the water in the end to add pleasant fragrance to the clothes, such as a book in Ming dynasty《多能鄙事》/Duō néng bǐ shì ("I can do a lot of humble things") by 刘基/Liú jī recorded: Tree Peony Bark 31.25g and Spikenard 3.125g, powdered.

[godesssiri]

10 Thrifting tips the thrilling continuation

I am a dedicated thrifter and I have done a few thrifting tips posts, things to look for, how to find the best stuff. I had an excellent day thrifting today and decided it was a good day to polish up a draft I had and post it. So read more for tips to get the goodies.

If you buy fairly plain wooden furniture, it doesn’t take a whole lot of expertise to refinish it. You can get a cheap palm sander for less than 50 bucks, and a small tin of furniture wax goes a long, long, loooong way. Or you can get Danish oil if you want a satin finish or Teak oil for a gloss finish. Don’t let Youtube videos make you believe you have to test out 10 zillion different coloured stains unless you are aiming for a very specific look. Just make sure you slap something nourishing on the wood after you’ve sanded it. Also remember that whatever product you use; multiple light coats will come out better than one thick coat. There’s a huge amount of satisfaction in looking at a gorgeous chunk of wood you’ve bought back to life.

French milled/triple milled soap. Old ladies like to give soap as gifts and people tend to stick it in their drawer to scent their clothes and never actually use it, eventually they have a clean out and this unused soap goes to the thrift store still in it’s original paper wrapping. This soap is expensive. This soap is fantastic. The milling process creates a very different product than the bars you get at the supermarket. It doesn’t go goopy and melty even if you leave it sitting in a puddle in your shower, it’s not as drying to your skin, the scent stays on your skin for longer. These bars last for months, it’s well worth picking them up if you like the scent.

Blue Willow. Would you like to have a nice set of china but don’t want to drop a lot of money on something that might look dated in 10 years? Collect blue willow from thrift stores. Blue willow has been around for hundreds of years and it’s going to be around for hundreds more. It can be slotted in to almost any home style, classical, boho, maximalist, scandi, etc, etc. Because it’s been around for so long pretty much every manufacturer has done it, so you find it really often at thrift stores and it’s easy to pick up a couple of plates here and a serving bowl there. Also, because so many companies have done it over such a long period it’s possible to pick up modern dishwasher safe dinner plates that you can use alongside a lovely 100-year-old antique gravy boat.

Gifts. Never feel ashamed of buying gifts from thrift stores. The perfect vintage item is way more meaningful than any amount of new stuff. And if you’re buying for someone who doesn’t like vintage; if something looks new and undamaged how is the recipient going to know that it’s not new?

Get yourself a thrifting routine. You’re gonna find the best stuff if you go often so don’t just randomly go every now and then. People who say they never find anything are the ones who only call into a thrift store every couple of months and expect something amazing to just drop into their lap. Set a day once a week, or every other week or once a month, but make a commitment to go on a regular basis.

If you see something that you think you like but you’re not 100% sure, as long as you can afford it and have a place for it, get the thing. Take it home, live with it. Maybe you’ll decide you don’t really like it and take it back to the thrift store and consider the price you paid a charitable donation. But sometimes you bring something home that you kinda like and end up absolutely loving it. Some of my favourite things in my house are things I wasn’t completely sure about when I was in the thrift store. There’s nothing worse than the regret of leaving something behind because you weren’t sure about it, then deciding actually I do want that thing, but it’s gone, and you’ll never find another quite like it.

If possible, go with someone who knows your likes/tastes. It’s amazing the number of times I’ve been in a thrift store with my mother or best friend, and they’ve found something I love that I hadn’t even noticed. Plus they’ll be dirty rotten enablers and encourage you to buy the thing that you love but you’re not sure you can justify to yourself.

There are a bunch of Youtubers who do thrift flips. If there’s some décor item that’s in all the stores at the moment and you love it, but can’t justify spending money on it, then it might be worth looking up to see if anyone has done a thrift flip and can give you a tutorial on how to turn a thrifted item into the hot décor items of your dreams.

Keep the cycle going. If you have stuff in your home that you no longer use/love, then donate it. If you’ve traded up and found something better but your original thing still has life in it, donate. Even if you originally bought something from a thrift store no one is gonna be mad if you send it right on back (unless you’ve used it to death, and it really should be heading for landfill).

Don’t put yourself in a box. Don’t refuse to get something because it’s not ‘your style’. What is ‘your style’? Things that you love, that make you happy. Do you love this thing? Does it make you smile? Then it’s your style. Honestly style is something that evolves organically, that grows and expands as we’re exposed to new things. If you try to follow a certain style rigidly then you’ll end up with a home that looks boring and cookie-cutter. Throw in something unexpected that speaks to you. Then throw in another of those things and another and another and pretty soon you’ll end up with a home that actually is your style – maybe you just don’t know what your style really is yet. I think of myself as very confident in my style, but I’m constantly stumbling across new things that I didn’t know I needed in my life.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

[poly-thot-one-piece-edition]

Between the Three of Us

Marco x afab!Reader x Shanks

CW: omegaverse elements (it is such a small part of the story I almost hesitate to mention it), violence, group sex, sex, swearing, it's a noir detective AU I'm sorry I really don't know what else to say.

Summary: A One Piece Noir Detective AU x reader story

You've stolen the treasure of the century - a puzzle orb that's a map to Gol D Roger's treasure. But the map itself has some secrets, and so do you. Pursued by the Mafia family that hired you to steal the orb you find yourself in Feathered Talon - an agency of freelance detectives with connections across the island - and the Grandline.

Are Shanks and Marco your unexpected saviors? Or will you be betrayed yet again, and handed over to the iron will of Absolute Justice - the mafia family in control of the Grandline?

Chapter 1: Caught

The whole thing had been simple.

Break into a heavily fortified, World Government subsidized museum and steal its crowning jewel - Roger’s map to the One Piece. Get in, get the goods, get out. It had been meticulously planned, and the plan had been rehearsed dozens of times.

Your benefactors had money to spare on such an endeavor, and the treasure that Roger’s map led to, was rumored to be incomprehensible in value. Gold and jewels aside, he had found the One Piece, and while many believed he had tossed the accursed item into the depths of the ocean, your client seemed to believe it was all still in his cache.

Gol D Roger - treasure hunter to some, gentleman thief to others. He had retired some years after finding the One Piece and had become a sort of Legendary Detective, along with a few people from his original crew.

The government had never been able to pin him with actual proof of law breaking, and so his agency had been legit. He went from having the government as an enemy to having the government and the mafia families as enemies, and yet at the same time there were strange alliances mixed all up in it.

Disease and bad luck had been the end of his days, but to so many people he was practically a god. A miracle of a man who had lived his life to its fullest with nothing to apologize for.

You had a solid appreciation for Roger yourself, avid inner city treasure hunter that you were. Little less appreciation for him turning his coat to the side of the law, but being a free lance detective was a far cry from being a government dog, so it was forgivable.

Roger and his past wasn’t your problem right now.

The job had gone off flawlessly. So flawlessly you’d had extra time to spare in the museum before you had to leave and came upon an interesting discovery. The map wasn’t just a map.

About the size of a bowling ball, but unbelievably lighter, the brass orb with its lines and circles was believed to be a sea chart. Coat it in ink, roll it out on paper and it would provide you a course.

Provided, of course, you knew the correct way to roll it out, and how to set it before inking it.

The orb’s surface shifted seamlessly. The craftsmanship was completely beyond anything anyone could manufacture nowadays. Whatever ancient genius had made it before was still eons ahead of his time, but what that meant was that the orb had an innumerable number of settings.

In this sense you could use it to navigate the entire world. As long as you knew how to set the surface of it, it could get you anywhere. But that also meant, if you didn’t already know how to get somewhere you couldn’t set the surface correctly, and in this way it became a museum piece, instead of the pride and joy of the world government.

You weren’t stupid. You weren’t, perhaps, wise, but you were really good at puzzles. Especially spatial ones. You were also good at languages and pattern recognition, but that was a facet of dumb luck. You had an eidetic memory, more photographic than auditory, but your brain was a one way trap for information, bypassing your short term memory in record time and becoming an easily accessible long term memory immediately.

You didn’t always know what to do with the information you gobbled up, but you always had it.

Most of the time you transcribed things and sent them to Ohara, or sold them to information brokers to pay your rent. It was a gift you kept separate from your working identity - if people knew you were practically a walking camera, they wouldn’t do business with you.

But right now your knack for puzzles and your gift were coming together. Without really thinking about the consequences, you whirled and snapped the orb into a frenzy, stopping all the parts where you wanted them.

The small orb lined up perfectly as a map of the world, one island raised ever so slightly above the rest. You ran your thumb over it, applying just the barest hint of pressure and the little island shifted and dropped, with a satisfying click.

An invisible seam along the redline parted, letting you open the orb into two halves. You knew, as soon as you saw it you knew what you were looking at, but the gravity of it was enough to make you bring the two halves together again. A few turns, a couple twists, and the orb was back as you had found it.

You left the museum, mind reeling with possibilities. Your only immediate option was to finish the job. Hand off the orb, take your payment, and be done.

But the hand off had gone bad. Your presence was requested, the people around you knew what you could do in unsettling detail, and your job wasn’t over. The night went from robbery to attempted kidnapping.

You had slipped the grasp of those around you, nicked the orb, and bolted. The two things on your side were your own skills - what made you a good thief, made you a good runner, and second to that they needed you alive.

Wanted you alive, at the least.

The short-ranged stun guns missed their mark, and the longer-range guns couldn’t risk killing you, and so the small scuffle turned into a city-wide chase. The deep hours of the night turned into the wee hours of the morning, and you had lost your pursuers a few times.

As good as you were at shaking them, they were skilled at tightening the net. You needed to get off the streets before-

The crack in the air of a muffled gunshot followed the force of impact as it slammed into your shoulder. Searing pain followed as your mind caught up with the facts, and you nearly toppled before you broke into a mad dash.

When your legs moved, your arms moved. When your arms moved your shoulder screamed. You only had the orb under control because you’d stolen someone’s shoulder bag earlier, trying to snag a collection of items in an attempt to disguise yourself and change out your clothes.

You were beginning to suspect that your gear had been tagged, but everything you’d been able to check was clean, and everything you couldn’t be sure about had been swapped out. Maybe that’s why you were being shot at now - better to risk it than to let you slip away.

It didn’t matter, your problem, and its resolution were still the same: you had to get off the streets.

You took a few errant turns and ended up almost in a courtyard of sorts. There wasn’t any grass, it was a concrete lot and a sidewalk, but the business front didn’t face a street. Just the interior of the little open area. There were a couple of alleys that came into this, and one driveway just large enough for a vehicle. There was a garage, a wheelchair lift, and a set of stairs up to what looked like the main way in.

Pulling out your lockpick you zipped up the concrete and metal stairs as quick and quiet as you could, relieved to find they were solid, sturdy, and silent. You rammed your custom tool into the lock, effectively breaking it, you didn’t have time to be gentle, and stepped in, closing the door swiftly and quietly.

You leaned against the wall, straining to hear outside and letting your eyes adjust to the interior inside. There were a few desks, but the office space was pretty open. The sign outside had been enlightening enough.

Feathered Talon, Detective Agency, at your service.

Feathered Talon. Sounded like a talisman of some sort. Mythical creature. Useless romanticism, you were sure. You didn’t hear any ruckus outside, and a few fleeting glances through the slats of the blinds didn’t show any movement.

Stepping into the office, you took a better look around. The place wasn’t just set up for business, it was set up for living. There was a kitchen down one hall, a daybed against the wall, out of the way of the rest of the needs for a kitchen. A half-bath nearby, and probably a full bath further down the hall. This one looked like it was more for clients to use than it was for whoever lived here.

Lived. Humph. You’d just have to be quiet while you assessed your damage and dodged your persistent pursuers.

You set your bag down beside the sink counter, and pulled down the collar of your stolen shirt. The soft light of a nightlight by the sink was as much light as you were allowing yourself, but at least it gave you a better look at your current problem.

No exit wound. The bullet was still inside your shoulder, probably lodged right against your scapula, if you had to take a terribly uneducated guess. You didn’t have a second mirror, and you couldn’t move enough to look at your back – the pain in your shoulder was simply too bad.

You took a few deep breaths, letting them out slowly, calming yourself and focusing on your own body for a moment. There wasn’t a sensation of blood running down your back, so you weren’t in danger of bleeding out, but the slug couldn’t stay. You couldn’t get it out, not right now. All you could hope was that you could stay out of sight long enough to make it to the Public Defenders – a kind of wild bunch who had the sort of connections, and did the sort of work you needed right now.

“I can stitch that.” The sound of the voice hit your ears and your body moved. You shifted further into the small bathroom, little more than a penknife in your good hand, eyes focused on a tall man standing in the doorway.

He takes a step back, putting his hands up. He’s trying not to look intimidating, but he’s nearly seven feet tall, and the tattoo across his chest looks a little familiar even in the dim light.

“Rough night, yoi?” He half asks, half states, and he looks down the hall just before you hear the sound as well. There’s a ruckus in the courtyard. Nothing serious, the sounds of a lot of boots and talking. He looks back at you and you look at him, and there’s a quiet understanding between you.

“How’d you get in?” His voice is soft, just above a whisper.

“… Broke the lock.”

“Not the window?”

You shake your head. “Internal break. No one should be able to tell from looking.”

A smile crosses his face, and he relaxes more. “Smart. Who is it?” He questions, inclining his head down the hall.

“B… Boss Akainu’s men.” You admit hesitantly.

“Absolute Justice?” He nearly hisses the question, leaving you in the bathroom and heading toward the front door.

You gather your things, pulling the shoulder bag snug against yourself as you step down the hall a little, listening in to whatever’s happening. If this blonde is going to sell you out, you at least want the chance to outrun him. The entrance to this place might be in an interior courtyard, but one of the other windows could face the street.

You could hear the tall man saying something out into the courtyard. You weren’t entirely sure what it was, but he sounded like he was angry at the people making all the noise – as though he was playing things off like they’d ruined his sleep, and not like he was trying to give you over to them.

Still, you’d put him, and this agency, at enough risk. It was better if you left than get them involved too deeply. Especially since, so far, they seemed like nice enough people.

Turning away from the front door you go down the hall and find a room with an open door. Peeking in you don’t see or hear anyone inside, but it’d be hard to see anything – there’s no window. You furrow your brow and step back out into the hallway.

The small hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, and you feel a cold bead of sweat slide down your spine. Something causes your stomach to knot, and you can’t even register the pain in your shoulder from the unsettled feeling that’s fallen over you. You want to run, but you don’t know if the hallway is a dead end, or if it wraps back around to the office areas.

You swallow hard, forcing yourself to look down the hall toward the source of the feeling that’s screaming for your body to run.

A man is leaned against the wall. He looks calm and relaxed, an easy smile on his lips and hooded brown eyes regarding you in the dim light of the hall, but the façade isn’t fooling you. He’s a dangerous man, and every fiber in your body is telling you to run, but you already know you’d never outpace him.

“Leaving so soon?” His voice is certainly disarming, you’ll give him that much. Speaking of disarming he seems to be missing most of one.

“I… wasn’t exactly invited in the first place.” You reply as evenly as you can. “I thought it best to make use of his distraction and, um, not impose further.” You take a step back, but you can already feel someone behind you.

“Let me patch that shoulder.” The familiar voice behind you says. “We’re going to be more discreet than the hospital, at least.”

Your eyes are on the man in front of you. Some part of you has determined he’s the more dangerous one, though you’re effectively surrounded. It doesn’t matter who you kept your eyes on.

“I don’t have any money on me.” It’s kind of a last-ditch attempt. You’ve already realized these two mean to keep you here, one way or another. They’re just being polite about it.

“A good story has quite the value.” The red-head says, taking a drink from a bottle you didn’t even realize he was holding. Water, wine, or poison, the sharp look in his eyes was proof enough he wasn’t phased by whatever was in the container. “I’m sure your story will be worth the patch job.”

You turn toward the man behind you, and the blonde looks down at you with an equally genuine smile. Your shoulders drop, and the action reminds you that you have a bullet lodged in it. Almost nothing about this evening has gone as expected, or as you had hoped, and you weren’t yet sure if this was your luck turning, or staying the course.

“I am… in your care, it seems.”

[carmapapercup]

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[ishwara1]

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[msnogood]

Odd Flower Friend

Mixed media figure made with felt, paper clay, and recycled plastic flower stem. Great gift for someone you feel uncertain of. It will watch them, day and night, without a blink.

Materials we used:

Plastic flower stem (scavenged from our dungeon of dross)

Green and wood air dry clay for petals

Polyester batting as base fiber (scavenged from grocery delivery padding)

Soft yellow acrylic / nylon yarn as top fiber (hand unraveled with pet brush)

Glass head sewing pins in green

Wood glue

Tools we used:

Felting needles

Wire cutter

Smooth sculpting stick

Some water in a small bowl

Toothpick

Pet carding brash (only to unravel yarn with)

Notes:

Yarn can be cheaper than roving and provides much more variety in colors and fabric content. We wanted this project to use synthetic fiber only and it is much easier (while tedious) and cheaper to unravel yarn than to scour the earth for non-animal based roving.

Plenty of abandoned plastic flower at thrift stores. Consider salvaging before buying newly manufactured materials whenever possible.

Always pay attention to inorganic trash, and find ways to recontextualize them as materials. e.g. The polyester batting is from grocery deliveries by a company called Renewliner that made wrong claims that their liner is recyclable. But not many places recycle PET in this form, so it practically is polyester fluff that is trash to most households. Ask friends and family around to collect them. They are great as base fiber for needlefelting.

Cut poly batting into circles.

Stab them to a loose disc shape.

Continue to stab as you bend the disc into a bowl shape.

Marvel at your felted bowl shaped dish base.

Put a mesh of top fiber on felted base.

Evenly stab top fiber on.

Cut glass pins to length.

Put glass pins at roughly where eyes best be.

Stab in more top fiber where cheeks best be.

Stab in the undercheek area, (sideways) towards chin, to make chin more prominent.

Roll a little top fiber into a loose ellipsoid and stab it where the top lip best be.

Repeat the same step for the lower lip. Make sure the corner of the mouth sinks into the edge of cheeks. Leave a defined gap in between lips.

Stab the gap in between lips to deepen it.

Stab the area below lower lips to deepen, but not as much as lip gap.

Stab any loose fiber from the back of face back in. Make sure to not stab through the other side and keep the fiber contained within the face.

Mix a bit of green clay with wood clay for a desaturated natural soft green.

Make a thick round disc.

Cut 7 slits evenly at edge.

Round the corners with wet fingers with small bowl of water.

Bend it to a slight bowl shape like we did with the felted face.

Let dry on a domed surface.

Poke a hole through the petals with the plastic flower stem tip when the petals are dry to the touch but still moist inside.

Let petal dry completely.

Once dry, take out the petals, use wood glue diluted with water to seal petals. Make sure it is sealed just enough without looking too glossy. Dap finger on glossy parts to make them matte.

Let petal dry completely.

Once dry, put wood glue at the tip of the flower stem (the base of the stem needle). Our cupped shaped head held a good amount of glue.

Insert petals on the flower stem through the hole to desired position.

Let dry again for at least a day.

Once dry, trim off any excess stem needle that would be too long for the face’s thickness with wire cutter.

With a toothpick slowly drill a hole into the back of the face at where the stem needle would be best inserted.

Insert the flower face onto flower stem tip.

And you have yourself a good enough new flower friend.

[time4hemp]

What Is Hemp?

It’s A Trillion Dollar Cash Crop.

Hemp is a name given to a strain of the cannabis plant.

Hemp is a name given to cultivars of the cannabis plant (Cannabis sativa) that have been selected over many generations for fiber and seed production. Most hemp cultivars contain less than 1.5% THC, a narcotic compound that has the potential for abuse in high concentrations. Cannabis sativa cultivars selected and developed for their drug properties, referred to as marijuana, or dagga, can have a THC content of 3%-25%.  Hemp is a bast fiber, producing its fibers in the stalk similar to flax, kenaf, and sun hemp.

Multiple Uses

Hemp fiber and seed are used to produce a wide range of commodities including food and beverage products, fiberboard, insulation, paper, composites, textiles, carpets, animal bedding and feed, cosmetics, body-care products, soaps, paints, fuels, and medicines.

Hemp Seed Food and Beverage Products

Hemp seed contains about 25% protein, 30% carbohydrates, & 15% insoluble fiber. Hemp seed is reported to contain more easily digestible protein than soybeans. Hemp seed contains all 8 amino acids essential to human nutrition. Hemp seed is high in calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, carotene, sulfur, iron and zinc, as well as Vitamins A, E, C, B1, B2, B3, and B6.

Hemp seed imported into the United States or Canada must be steam sterilized at between 180 degrees F and 212 degrees F for 15 minutes to prevent sprouting. Many US facilities receive imported viable seed under customs bond, steam it, and release it to the consignee or customer with a Certificate of Sterilization.

Hemp food and beverage products include hemp oil and seed, flour, pasta, cheese, tofu, salad dressings, snacks, sweets, hemp protein powders, soft drinks, beer, and wine. Hemp beer can be made from the seed, flowers, sprouts, and seed cake that is a by-product of oil pressing. Hemp beer is produced and sold in Europe and the United States of America.

Hemp Oil

Hemp seed is 25% to 35% oil, and is one of the oils lowest in saturated fats (8%). Hemp seed oil is the richest source of polyunsaturated essential fatty acids (80%). Hemp seed oil is the only common edible seed oil containing Omega-6 Gamma-Linolenic Acid. Hemp seed oil is very fragile and not suitable for cooking.

Pressed hemp seed oil must be bottled immediately under oxygen-free conditions, and must be refrigerated in dark, airtight containers.

Fiberboard

Hemp fiberboard tested by Washington State University Wood Materials and Engineering Laboratory proved to be two and one half times stronger than wood MDF composites, and the hemp composite boards were three times more elastic.

Hemp herds can be used in existing mills without major changes in equipment. Russia, Poland and other Eastern European countries already manufacture composite boards from hemp and other plant materials.

Pulp and Paper

The major use of hemp fiber in Europe is in the production of specialty papers such as cigarette paper, archival paper, tea bags, and currency paper. The average bast fiber pulp and paper mill produces 5,000 tons of paper per year. Most mills process long bast fiber strands, which arrive as bales of cleaned ribbon from per-processing plants located near the cultivation areas.

Composites

Until the 1930’s, hemp-based cellophane, celluloid and other products were common, and Henry Ford used hemp to make car doors and fenders. Today hemp herds can be used to make new plastic and injection-molded products or blended into recycled plastic products. Hemp fibers are introduced into plastics to make them stiffer, stronger and more impact resistant. Hemp plastics can be designed that are hard, dense, and heat resistant, and which can be drilled, ground, milled, and planed.

Hemp plastic products currently made include chairs, boxes, percussion instruments, lampshades, bowls, cups, spectacles, jewelry, skateboards, and snowboards.

Hemp Animal Care

Hemp horse bedding and cat litter are produced and sold in Europe. After oil is extracted from the hemp seed, the remaining seed cake is about 25% protein and makes an excellent feed for chicken, cattle, and fish. Chickens fed hemp seed on a regular basis have been found to produce more eggs, without the added hormones used in most poultry plants.

Fuels

Hemp seed oil can be combined with 15% methanol to create a substitute for diesel fuel which burns 70% cleaner than petroleum diesel. Hemp stalks are rich in fiber and cellulose, making them conducive for conversion into ethanol and methanol fuels that have a higher octane than gasoline and produce less carbon monoxide. These biomass fuels are also free from sulfur, and do not require the addition of lead and benzene used to boost octane and improve engine performance in fossil fuels. Ethanol holds condensation, eliminating oxidation and corrosion, and is reported to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 30%.

Hemp has been studied in Ireland as a biomass fuel to generate electricity. Hemp has been reported to yield 1000 gallons of methanol per acre year. Hemp stalk can be converted to a charcoal-like fuel through a thermochemical process called pyrolysis. Henry Ford operated a biomass pyrolitic plant at Iron Mountain, Michigan in the mid-20th.

Paints and Varnishes and Binders

Until the 1930's, most paints were made from hemp seed oil and flax seed oil. Hemp oil makes a durable, long lasting paint that renders wood water-resistant. Hemp herds have the potential to make glues for composite construction products that are non-toxic and superior to binders currently used. With this technology, industry can produce composite products where all components are derived from hemp.

Markets for Hemp Pulp

Some paper manufacturers already have the equipment to process decorticated hemp fiber into paper. The leading European supplier of non-wood pulp, Celesa, currently produces about 10,000 tons per year of pulp from hemp. The use of hemp pulp in blends with recycled fiber of other non-wood fibers is growing. Tests by several European pulp and paper producers suggest that hemp pulp may replace cotton cost effectively in several specialty paper applications.

Potential Markets for Medical Application of Low-THC Hemp Cultivars

Many cannabis medicines have been produced using cannabis cultivars high in THC, and there has been medical research into cannabis that is low in THC and high in CBD.  CBD is a cannabinoid that does not have many of the psychoactive effects associated with THC.  CBD has been used to treat the following medical conditions: epilepsy, dystonic movement disorders, inflammatory disorders, pain, chronic insomnia, chorea, cerebral palsy, and Tourette's syndrome. According to a July 1998 report by the National Institute of Health, CBD may hold promise for preventing brain damage in strokes, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and even heart attacks and has been found to prevent brain cell death in an experimental stroke model.

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[comradeocean]

The Secret of Why the Dinosaurs Went Extinct

Prologue: It was the winter of 1993… [non-fiction]

Naturally, the K Literature Award was instituted for the commemoration of 'K's. The prize money is not much, but people all say that with the K Literary Award in hand, the Nobel is not far off.

Why K? Because K is the signpost of literary genius for our time: Kafka, Kawabata, Koestler, Kundera, Kureishi, Krasznahorkai, Kraus… The time of 'K' is Kommunistische Zeit, and the time of Kapital. Ke Xiangying is surnamed 柯, Kay E. He really was blessed by the ancestors.

In order to retrieve the award, Ke Xiangying had to cross the Atlantic Ocean, from the East Coast of the United States to Europe. After picking up the trophy (and not much prize money), the publishing house, anxious to sell books, did not let him go. Instead, he was taken on a grand tour of the developed capitalist nations of the West, giving readings, interviews, guest lectures, seminars. Paris was their last stop.

One afternoon after the signing, Ke Xiangying emerged from a bookstore rotating his sore wrists and saw that the streets from the Luxembourg Gardens to the Pantheon were packed with people.

"What's this about?" Ke Xiangying asked the on-site interpreter.

The interpreter hired by the bookstore was a young international student. He shook his head and said that it could be anything since people in France were always protesting. It was the French translator of Ke Xiangying's novel who answered in halting Mandarin: "These are workers from several state-owned enterprises opposing privatization reforms. The ones at the front, yes, under the red CGT balloons, those are railway workers. They're the most militant. How do you say this in Chinese again? '砸了铁饭碗' — smashing the iron rice bowl. I actually learned the phrase from Ke's book."

The young international student was quite shocked. "There are still state-owned enterprises in France?"

The French translator was also surprised. "Which country doesn't have nationalized industries? Water, electricity, the post, automotive manufacturing… Of course the state has to be the controlling shareholder."

"Then are you also opposed to privatization?"

The young French man laughed. "Well, take the SNCF, it was probably nationalized long before I was born."

Ke Xiangying stood at the door of the bookstore, and watched the people with red flags walking past in waves. He suddenly remembered when he was very young, Chinese people could still take to the streets in demonstrations, carrying Chairman Mao's portrait (he had never seen any with portraits of Lin Biao; Ke Xiangying was only one year old when the plane crashed in Öndörkhaan). During the National Day parade, there were floats, and the ones featuring ranks of the working class [brothers] were particularly eye-catching. It was beyond glorious, all the workers of The Big Four gallantly marching by.

When he was young, he had a boyfriend named Jiang Ming who was a worker. That's right, Ke Xiangying was a homosexual. This was expected. Why else would a jury give the award to someone from China? Just because his last name began with K? There must always be something else beyond the writing: being a sexual minority, of color, anti-Communist, a Commie-lover, anti-Unification, pro-Unification, a Croat, a Serb, a Jew, a Tutsi, a Native American … Third-World literature cannot avoid politics.

As a matter of fact, Ke Xiangying really didn't want to talk about all that. He always said in interviews, "I'm not a liberal. How can you discern ideology from a love story?" The academics in the Faculty of Arts just laughed and kept on writing their papers — "Although Ke refuses to acknowledge the political orientation of his novels, we see that in his writings, the authoritarian regime…" And if Ke Xiangying only had cock in mind when he picked up a pen? That was not their purview.

But the cock was not Jiang Ming's. He didn't dare recall it. Ke Xiangying pressed the Jiang Ming who was unlike anyone else in all of existence into the deepest little box in his heart. Even through the hard days of New York City when he only had the free Chinese church meals to eat, or when his manuscript was rejected by the 17th publisher, or when a Mexican gigolo robbed him of all his money, he didn't dare to take the lid off the box and think about Jiang Ming. He was afraid that his thoughts would make the memories fade, like sugar that melted away more and more with every lick.

Ke Xiangying knew that he had never loved anyone in his life the way he loved Jiang Ming. Only when he looked at Jiang Ming did his soul tickle as Plato said, become warm and moist, and grow the fine feathers that carried people into the sky. But now he no longer had wings, and he didn't dare try to remember Jiang Ming like it had been a previous life.

In this moment though, everything had to come rushing back in. He couldn't stop staring at the ranks of trade unionists in the demonstration. Some of them wore blue overalls. Some took off their shirts, revealing the slightly-tanned inverted triangles of their muscular bodies, just like Jiang Ming used to do. In the summer, he didn't bother wearing an undershirt, just walked around the house with his upper body bare. Ke Xiangying couldn't stand it anymore. He announced to the publisher with the self-righteous impulse prone to middle-aged men that he will return to China soon. The publisher nodded, as if to demonstrate his knowingness about the matter at hand — that of a triumphant return and all.

Ke Xiangying's brother, Ke Xianghai, drove to Beijing International Airport for the pick-up. In recent years, after a long period of estrangement, they had started contact each other more frequently again because Ke Xianghai's son was studying in the United States.

Sitting in the car, other than the grey-blue sky, Tianjin seemed very different from when he had left. Ke Xiangying made a sound of surprise when the car drove over the Hai River. He had never seen any of these skyscrapers and reconstructions of the foreign concessions that filled the night sky with light pollution. And the chimneys he was so familiar with, there was no trace left at all. Back then, the Tianjin Radio and Television Tower had not been built yet, and the tallest building in the city was that big chimney. Day and night, white smoke had floated out of it, like little white dragons bound for the high sky of the North China Plain, crossing en-route the Hai river, which had seemed much wider than it was now.

Having made an appearance at his brother's drinking party and fulfilled the role of hometown kid made good, Ke Xiangying could hardly wait to ask his brother to help him find and contact old friends.

Before going abroad, Ke Xiangying and Jiang Ming's family, or more precisely, his two sisters, were almost at each other's throats. And after Jiang Ming's family discovered Jiang Ming had unexpectedly titled the deed of his apartment to Ke Xiangying, he became the sworn enemy of the Jiang parents.

Now, with the passage of time, Ke Xiangying can even be in the inconceivable position of sitting in a cafe with Jiang Ming's little sister. Her name was Jiang Liang, and she was a senior engineer at the design institute. They sat there for about half an hour. Ke Xiangying had the distinct realization that as their conversation drew on, Jiang Liang's hatred for him was growing with every second. By the end, this middle-aged, middle class woman no longer cared to put up with the notion of respectable conduct. That rough and tumble childhood spent in the alleys of Tianjin was once again revived in her body. "You intellectuals…" she said. "I've figured it out now. You intellectuals are the most selfish and misanthropic people of all. It was my brother's curse to have met you. So jot this down: other people have the right to say whatever they want about my brother. But not you.

No one would be talking to him about Jiang Ming.

That night at home, Ke Xiangying tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. Finally, he got up and turned on the computer. You all refuse to talk about him with me? Fine. I'll do it myself. He opened a new document, and the screen was as empty as the memories he now had. His fingers fell into the familiar shapes of typing on the keyboard.

"It was the winter of 1993…"

translated author's notes

[1] This work is named in honour of Antonia Pennacchi's debut novel "Mammut" or Mammoth. ["L’egemonia operaia? Ma per piacere… Siamo una classe estinta… Come il bisonte d’Europa. Come i mammut" — Workers' hegemony? Please… We are an extinct class… Like the buffalos of Europe, like the woolly mammoths.]

[2] The Big Four, or literally the "Four Heavens" refers to the four big enterprises in Tianjin that once 'built all of China' - the Tianjin tractor plant, the Tianjin heavy machinery plant, the Tianjin machinery plant, and the Tianjin engine plant.

[uwmspeccoll]

Typography Tuesday

The designers highlighted in Some Examples of the Work of American Designers, edited and arranged by J. M. Bowles, designed the initial letters for their own entries. Shown here are:

A - Frank H. Weikel

B - W. P. Schoonmaker

C - Adrian J. Iorio

L - Louise Ames Norman

M - Arthur Finley

P - Charles R. Capon

T - Charles B. Falls

Some Examples of the Work of American Designers was printed in Philadelphia by Edward Stern & Co. for Dill & Collins Co. Papermakers in 1918 on thirty styles of paper manufactured by Dill & Collins Co in Philadelphia.

View our other Typography Tuesday posts