Retail Therapy

Not cheap but the money is better spent.

Just checked to see how much I owe on my credit card for this past billing month. I expected it to be high but not as high as it is. Not worried as I have the cash to cover it but I do need to rein in the spending. Mainly but not exclusively spent on ukiyoe. I believe this is my highest ever credit card bill. Have a lot on the way to me and just saw that the three frames I ordered for them are awaiting me when I return to the apartment. Ironically, I threw out quite a few frames of other sizes as I planned a spartan lifestyle of little more than working, sorting my stuff and pitching a lot of it. I removed various photos, ukiyoe, prints and posters from the cheap frames I had them in and threw out the frames. With all the new woodblock prints and with the possibility I will stay, I’d like to fill the black wall space above my new furniture. After renewing my DL last Friday, I searched the stores I thought would carry frames the correct size and found none. I currently have two and over he weekend swapped one of my newly acquired prints with on I bought long ago with the frame. The frame is nice and easy to change out images but are sold only in ukiyoe shops at ¥15,000 apiece. The ones I bought online cost me less than ¥3000 each.

One of my big ticket items was an error on my part. Being careful to ensure I was getting only reproduction ukiyoe and not the images printed by modern methods, I misjudged a large set of high quality LE poster prints. At first, I was extremely disappointed in myself and the purchase and did not even look at any other than the first one to see if I flubbed or not. After almost a week I finally looked through them. Very high quality prints. They do a great job of imitating the mica on the images that have it, not perfect but great. One thing I have been thinking about is do I really want to put these on the wall. If I place glass or plastic over them in frames, a lot of detail, such as the embossed textures, is hard to see. However, if left unprotected, dust and gunk can damage them. I will put the poster prints of my favorite hand made prints in frames and keep the reproductions in their albums.

I have also ended up with multiple copies of the same prints. Some of these doubles were by choice, a couple by accident and a few because they came in sets that had others I was looking for and the price per item really really low. One pair was intentionally purchased. It is of a place I believe to be in Tokyo and which I disembarked from the train years ago on the way home to see how it looks now. As with most places depicted in the scenic woodblock prints of centuries ago, melancholy over what has been lost is what I found at the site of these awesome prints. Each depicting the same scene with the same wood blocks, but differing in the rendition of it. It is a scene of a Tori to a shrine and much beyond it veiled in fog. One print seems more foggy, the other, more detailed in the foreground yet foggy in the distance. Not being able to choose which appealed to me more, I bought both to show how even two copies of same print with the same blocks and most likely the same printer can differ. As these are hand made, no two are exact copies.

Before I embarked upon rebuilding my ukiyoe collection, I bought quite a few koro, incense censors, several of which were shown in my photo of my new sideboard in my dinning area. Urushimono, Japanese lacquerware, is another area that has benefited from my buying spree. Local history from back home is another. Cannot go into as great of detail as I would wish as it would give away too much personal information, but my hometown played key roles in the US civil war and I recently found copies of photos from that era and locale and a book that I have also bought. Several have already arrived, others are on their way.

I have two kleptocratic governments scheming to deprive me of the benefits of my own labor. I am not particularly interested in longevity, see my last posting for insight as to why not. I expect to not be allowed the amount necessary to live after forced retirement nor do I expect my lifestyle to allow for a life span that would make this an issue. I enjoy my new censors to burn my premium incense in, my premium incense and my ukiyoe and if I die before the kleptocrats sweep in, I win. Better yet if no doctor profits from my deteriorating health.

Enjoy what you have for as long as they let you have it.