Stevyn's Blog

You look taller than Yul Brynner!


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5 years ago or so I attended a private art performance event in Sapporo and as I was leaving the petite elderly Japanese hostess spoke in English to me, "You look taller than Yul Brynner!" Haha, I was very surprised! He was 173cm and I am 180. What does that mean? I take it as a compliment, it amuses me, and I am not even sure why. He is a talented star, why would she compare me to him? why him? Now I wonder if she knew him and I am the rare foreigner for her to meet thus the comparison? I want to talk to her again, interview her for my zine. Typing this up I now have another memory of her from a previous encounter, she told me she is a writer.

High Street Kensington markets in London 1982

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PHAZE Clothing UK 1980's. On my high school trip we visited the UK during the Spring of 1982 and on my student "free time" I drank Carlsberg Special Brews and explored the High Street Kensington markets in London and discovered a stall selling these t-shirts. Just scanned in this poster tonight and wanted to share. I also have a 500M .tif available if you want for printing or better examination. I bought their "zip jacket" and dream of reproducing it in Japan, seeking a local pattern maker❤ Can you guess what shirt I bought? don't try 🙂 Cheers & hope you have a great day.

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Denver : I heard news that Carbone's Italian Deli on 38th closed.  Maybe in 2013?  As I grew up east coast, a good sub was vital and Colorado lacks this but Carbone's was the real deal, was where I went as much as possible.  I remember how engaging matriarch Rosa was to me and everyone waiting in line.  The joy of unwrapping that white butcher paper and enjoying the heavenly sandwich ❤️

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Cruising the ocean frontage roads of Tomakomai we stopped to admire this little garden paradise. The owner popped out to welcome us. He once owned a cabaret club in Chitose many years ago, now at 75 he is retired and his enjoyment is to create this garden so everyone can see. He collects the sun powered bobble head toys, he claims to have over 300. As we talked I enjoyed the sound of the surf pounding & fresh salty sea air. I want to go back and visit him, record his stories on tape and bring him a solar powered toy for his collection.

GREETS : Heyza, My name is Stevyn aka IronFeather. I was born in the year of the Horse in a small village in Scotland, UK back in the 1960's.    As a child, I grew up in the states , Georgia and Virginia then high schooled in New Hampshire.   I spent many of my favorite formative years as a barrista at both locations of Pennylane Coffeehouse in Boulder so if you made it there then we have probably met. 


It was a crush to the people of Boulder when Pennylane Coffeehouse closed down. The place was a safe haven, a gathering of underground types, punks, hippies, artists, poets, musicians, travellers, university students and regular working joes.

The place was a focus of peoples lives, a community hub. Its closure was a vacuum,  missed by many.  Soon after, John opened up the Laughing Goat Cafe which became a huge success and though the new cafe hosted the weekly poetry readings, rotating art shows, underground music events it was not a replacement for Pennylane and John never intended to copy or replace, this was his own project.

A crew of the Pennylane kids, not young adults, had access to a plot of barren land near Lyons and opened the Anarchists Club & Cafe and advertized the opening night as a reunion for all Pennylane regulars. It was a weird place, no real building, just a square dirt lot surrounded by an 8 foot tall wooden privacy fence and one side open to a steep hill of the Rocky Mountain foothills.  The owners promoted guns and many people brought firearms.  It reminded me of a motorcycle gang party! I was happy to see many familiar faces. Punks and hippies, older men playing chess. People brought their children. It was festive, fun, phreaky. The policy I was excited about was the 90 minute drink all you can for $40. But after I paid and went to the cooler all I could I find were chilled glasses and many diet cokes. A man assured me they would replenish the beer in just a few…

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Konnichiwa, like to share some feel good stories from Hokkaido Japan. Few months ago I attended a music gig at a small cafe near my house. The party was most excellent. I have since returned to the cafe for food & coffee and was very surprised to learn the origin story. The owner is a Japanese woman, an artist, who about 8 years ago watched a film about a cute cafe in Helsinki Finland. The film is a good heart warming story. She was deeply touched and moved by the film so much that she re-created the cafe in my town, the feels, the vibes, the food, etc. I was just there today and had delicious food, great coffee and best of all, awesome people. The cafe is now celebrating 7 years of being open and is rocking out. Of course the virus situation has us all stressed and she only has very limited hours, maybe 2 afternoons a week open. It is wild as now after watching the film I really want to visit Finland. I am touched also. There is this mystery vibe connection tween Finland and my area, Hokkaido Japan. So strong that Finland Air even started weekly direct flights to my remote island. I was honored as the staff invited me to join them in the future when they will host board game nights. I think it is amazing that a person can watch a movie and be so inspired to try and bring that vibe to their own world and make it reality. It worked! So cheers to the artists who create such stirring works and cheers to the fans who admire and are deeply moved by such works ❤️
 

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Lost my dear mother today.  I am shocked and torn up. My life is filled with so many good things thanks to her efforts, support and love. 



 

chitose-friends2.jpg Yippie!! My 5 year project concluded today!!! Happy story: Last night was awesome meeting up with a crew of my old co-workers for dinner and hours of gossip. Been years since I have seen them. I felt loved, respected, appreciated and I was so happy and emotional to see all of them. I love and cherish them. One of my friends with her kids drove many hours to attend, so after the festivities they crashed at my place. The next morning I felt pretty hip for putting on the old skool Jonny Quest cartoons for the children, they were always my favorite and they were totally into it. Around this time one of the boys spotted the Matryoshka doll on my…

LOG: 2019-12-17: Train home, standing. Evening debriefing with my sweetie. Play film soundtrack from THE STING while preparing ultra spicy relish toppings for our sandwiches tomorrow. Shocked to discover that there is a poster in my PURPLE RAIN Prince album I have had since college. WTF moment. Tis 9:40pm, what is next eh? Life is grande.
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ATH0

疑っている : Dubious Logic: Police in Tokyo recovered 159 bicycle seats from the home of 61yo Hatori Akio, who stole them from other unsuspecting riders. His motive? “I had my seat stolen, and I wanted others to feel my pain.”

Maybe my brain is purging old systems. Tonight I had a realization that the query A/S/L has not been asked of me in my recent cyber life, maybe for the past 7 years. Tis a good thing eh?

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SUBJECT:   PHUCK!!!!!!   Hard Drive Crash!!!
INFO:   Setbacks, obstacles, struggles and woes phucking hell!!!!
BAD NEWS:  2TB of data and four years of toil, tears and sweat lost….!!!
RELATIVE:  setback is nothing compared to what is happening in the news around the world.
GOOD NEWS:  Shelter, health, water, food and partner I love and adore.
PLAN:  Move onwards, start over.
 

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Paul Rentler's art is amazing & inspiring stuff.  
https://www.instagram.com/prentler/

 

Motorcycle drag races on the beach!

Lovely day out at the seaside with roaring motorbikes, rockabilly & surf music on the sound system, surfers, tasty food booths and all of Hokkaido's bikers hanging out. As you could guess, the 2-strokes won the races. Maybe about 200+ people?

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Trending in Japan: online quiz to "Measure the darkness level of your heart" and an "Uncle sentence generator", which spits out boring statements an older man would say online.

if you want to try the uncle sentence generator: enter your name and click the blue button https://reverent-shirley-368990.netlify.com/ then copy the response in the green area and paste into https://translate.google.com to translate to english, enjoy!

if you wish to measure the darkness level of your heart, visit https://shindanmaker.com/901557, enter your name and click the button, good luck!

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(message to my fellow Hokkaido Japan, usa expat, Vince) :

for some reason i had a brief vision of sneakers hanging from a power line and the next thought is that I should contact YOU and ask why this unique phenomenon has not caught on in Sapporo AND if you will educate your kids about it?

 

Pocket Flame Thrower (China)


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fresh3.gif Phucking phreaking loving this dark, deep, industrial house mix! Ideal for walking around in the night in Japan with headphones on.
 

D2VKau8U4AAckPh.jpgIt was a dark and stormy night.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

And then I woke up.

Waste of your time to read this. It is a waste of my time to write this. I have many pressing obligations such as important government documents to fill out, paid clients projects to start, correspondence to answer and also many phun hobbies to focus on such as firing up the sewing machine to make some DIY silk lingerie and also to design & produce a fancy kite. I should be working on a new issue of my zine, remixing a track for a friend in Denver, updating my websites, getting a walk in, cleaning my guest room, preparing for the Spring garden, listing books online to sell or cutting my fingernails but instead I want to design some software to phuck with spammers.

So spamming is really almost totally automated but a few random cats actually do fill in a feedback form. So why not design software to check the weather in their area via their IP and warn them, “hey bro, looks like major rain in Cincinnati area so wear your galoshes tomorrow!” and design the form to ask endless questions, tease them, taunt them, waste their time! I was thinking of to incorporate the mighty ZORK text adventure game, ELIZA and perhaps tap into the IBM Watson AI. I could pour tons of time into this project, perhaps invite you to help me :)

::NOV. 1, 2003: Excited to soon open my 1st bookshop I organized a bash! I am NOT a chef but by chance I had a chef hat and thought a chef themed party would be really fun… But realistically, how many friends have chef attire? So I thunk & thunk and decided that most everyone must be able to dress as a "biker" eh? so the party theme was BIKER vs CHEF and it was a big hit, tons o' phun and after the party we all marched down to the art galleries hosting "El Dia de Los Muertos" art gallery Fiesta Night…

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John Major Jenkins, Stevyn IronFeather, Julie, Jana

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source: IFJ SYSTEM - Iron Feather Journal
 

Men Who Can Do More Than 40 Push-Ups Far Less Likely To Develop Heart Disease

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2724778

This longitudinal cohort study of 1104 occupationally active adult men found a significant negative association between baseline push-up capacity and incident cardiovascular disease risk across 10 years of follow-up. Participants able to complete more than 40 push-ups were associated with a significant reduction in incident cardiovascular disease event risk compared with those completing fewer than 10 push-ups.