Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Memorial Service for Old Needles

From the local tourist info email, this looks unmissable:

Memorial Service for Old Needles

Broken and bent needles are stuck into tofu, and a service is held to pray for peace and improvement of dressmaking skill.

Location: Egara-Tenjinsha Shrine, Kamakura City
Date: February 8 (Thu)

It's just a 10 minute walk down the road from us. Jules says she may take the remains of the needle that she stitched through her finger (nail and all) with...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, this is too perfect...

Regarding Jules and the needle incident (ouch!), it's clear that someone will just have to put their foot down to prevent future such incidents! :) Also, isn't this sort of thing the reason why the techs get nervous whenever the theory folks venture out into the field?

Anonymous said...

Oh, and if at all possible *please* go and get a picture. It'll give my employees a whole new perspective on things.

James Annan said...

Sadly, the service is a Thursday and we don't know what time of day. So attendance is a bit doubtful...there is a picture of a heap of tofu with needles stuck in it via the link though!

And there are no pictures of the punctured finger at all, either before or after the bits of needle were extracted with pliers. Unfortunately I was out at the time :-)

Anonymous said...

Actually the picture will do nicely, so thanks. BTW, in addition to having a sewing connection, I'm a vegetarian who eats plenty of tofu, so if the resolution on that is good enough I'll frame it along with the caption. But why the tofu and not, e.g., a pincushion?

But actually a lot of the festivals look like fun, especially the bean-throwing (interesting they saw no need to explain the significance) and the adult diaper ceremony (which you *could* attend, it being on a Saturday). I have to say that a mental picture begins to form of a local tourist bureau with a rather aggressive staff.

Regarding the pliers, morbid curiosity has now gotten the better of me: Did Jules do the extraction herself? I hope and assume there was a full recovery, BTW.

James Annan said...

But why the tofu and not, e.g., a pincushion?

Having chomped my way through more than enough tofu, I might ask you the same about your diet...

Small hard dried beans are generally best thrown away too. That is to chase away demons, and is a well-known national holiday hence the lack off explanation. Oh, that was today, and we forgot.

Yes, jules had to extract the shrapnel herself. She says everyone does it once :-)