But What’s Under the Armor?

While a considerable amount of the content over at the wonderful boingboing.net tends toward Asia, sometimes the memes converge and the truly magical happens.

First, there’s  a post on bartitsu,  the fascinating hybrid martial arts form which is, according to the website, ” the first self defense system to combine Asian and European martial arts.”

Edward William Barton-Wright

Invented by a man whose mustache looks as though it could lay you out flat without mussing one waxed hair, bartitsu is one of those things I took little notice of when I first read the Sherlock Holmes story where it appears (also mentioned here), chalking it up to Conan-Doyle’s made-up Victoriana-Orientalism since it never came up in my Japanese readings.  This is why the internet exists, apparently.

And the other reason why the internet exists?  Shopping.  Or more precisely, increasing your desires for, say, knickers that look like Warring States period armor.

If any of you come to the Samurai exhibition at the Asian Art Museum, please drop a pair of the Oda Nobunaga ones by the Museum Store.  Thank you very much in advance.