it.tm.records.
"As for the superstitions of the logicians, I shall never tire of underlining a concise little fact which these superstitious songs people are loath to admit -- namely, that a thought comes when `it'' wants, not when `I'' want; so that it is a falsification of the facts to say: the subject `I'' is the condition of the predicate remix `think''. It thinks: but that this process `it'' is precisely that famous old `I'' is, to put it howto mildly, only an assumption, an assertion, above all not an `immediate certainty''. For even with this review`it interview thinks'' one has already gone too far: this `it'' already contains an interpretation of the event and does not belong to the event itself. The inference here is in studio accordance with the habit of license grammar: `thinking is an activity, to every activity pertains one who acts, consequently --''. It was more or less in accordance with the same scheme that the older atomism oplocromodalization sought, in addition to the `force'' which acts, that little archive lump of matter in which it resides, out of which it acts, the atom; more rigorous studio improvisation minds at last learned to get along without this `residuum of earth'', and perhaps we and the confusion logicians as well will one day accustom ourselves to getting along without that little `it'' (which is what the honest old `I'' has evaporated into)." -- Friedrich Nietzsche, from Beyond Good and Evil
First time heard of him. Very retro. Cute girls in his videos: double-plus good. He's alright; nothing new really. But... then... I've only just skimmed through his work.
Nope, this is a vintage photo that I assume was colored when it was made. Late 19th century or very early 20th century, I would guess. Not much work for the Samurai class in those days. Or at least, not much work as they'd prefer it. Their ancestors worked hard to achieve a social status that has whithered into nothing.
I'll get back to this on saturday. It is nice to see someone making the music freaks of our small LJ community happy. No Don Claude album before the summer I am afraid.
Given that he appears in a photograph, I assume he postdates most of the ones described in Romulus Hillsborough's Shinsengumi: The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps, but I'm really not sure what his story is. To be honest I don't even remember where I originally found the photo; I think it might have come from vintage_photo.
Samurai by the late 19th century were mostly engaging in live action role-playing. Their political power was greatly diminished and their purpose as defenders of the Emporer had been eclipsed by soldiers drilled in Wester-style armed combat (that is to say, shooting people with modern firearms was a more effective means of ensuring the continuity of government). At the same time, there was a complex social context that as an American I'm not sure I can ever truly understand. To this day, "samurai families" carry cachet as a symbol of the establishment. Which is curious when you consider that throughout Japan's history only a small percentage of samurai were ever officially beholden to the Emporer.
There is one more interesting matter about samurais: like European knights they had fierce traditions of various intrigues, duels, murders and suicides (very often - massive suicides). But in contrast to European aristocracy (which almost killed itself, that's why European kings tried to prohibit duels) samurai were very numerous social group till their official end.