Fortune, Dec 15, 2017

choi

Yesterday (as well as the day before it), I spent a better part of the day on the day on the Japanese art. Today I did more research.
(1) ( finally found the Japanese name for the maker of the pair of silver vase: HIRAYAMA Kantei (平山 寛亭（不明-不明）) 00 which are kanji.
(2) I also add (B) in the following:

(iii) "Myōchin Ki (no) Munechika 明珍 紀 宗[ ], Acorn-shaped Kabuto (1855)"
(A) I fail to find the second kanji of his given name. This helmet is in the collection of Stibbert Museum in Florence, Italy.
(B) Americans may call the kabuto 兜 (helmet) "acorn-shaped," but Japanese call it 椎実形兜 (or 椎形兜 for short). (Japanese pronunciation for 椎形 and 椎実形 are "shiikata" and :shii-no-mi-kata," respectively.) 椎の実 means beechnut, where 椎 is beech tree. See
武具・刀剣コレクション Collections. 東京富士美術館 Tokyo Fuji Art Museum (1983- ; private), undated
http://www.fujibi.or.jp/our-coll ... ?collection_id=b000
, where one collection (as a thumbnail) has the caption: "《鉄錆地六十二間椎形筋兜　火炎に梵字前立》 Sixty-two Plate Riveted Acorn-Shaped Suji Kabuto Helmet." This helmet is very similar to the one in a photo of the WSJ review (which also has a pair of flaps on the rim).
This 富士美 Fujibi Web page has another helmet whose caption is "鉄錆地南蛮鉢形兜 輪貫前立 Kabuto Helmet with Visor in the Namban [southern barbarian, which since the 15th century referring to Southeast Asians, Spaniards and Portuguese] Style."  鉢形 is short for 擂鉢形, with 擂鉢 defined as "(earthenware) mortar (for grinding)."  The English translation for 鉢形兜 is "cone-shaped kabuto." Note the pointed top of the helmet compared to an acorn-shaped one.


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Neither is earth-shaking, but both are inspiring.
(1) Dinah Eng, One Woman, Two Men, and a Truck. A Michigan mom turned her sons' weekend job into a multimillion-dollar business.
http://fortune.com/2017/12/16/two-men-truck-moving-company/
("Mary Ellen SheetsL "I grew up in Okemos, Mich * * * I went to Michigan State University [at East Lansing, Mich] but I really wanted a 'Mrs degree.' So at 20, I married my high school boyfriend, had three children, and didn't finish college. * * * The moving industry is a good-old-boys’ network, and they put up all kinds of barriers to stop me. * * * I took a buyout [presumably from her children] in 2017 and retired. * * * [side bar] Best Advice[:] Ignore doubters")
Note:
(a) Okemos, Michigan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okemos,_Michigan
("an unincorporated community * * * and does not have any separate legal existence as a municipality")
(i) From Google maps, Michigan State University is on the western border, and downtown of East Lansing, northwestern border, of Okemos.
(ii) The following are all from various pages of en.wikipedia.org: City of East Lansing is "directly east of Lansing, the state capital."  City of Lansing, Michigan is "Named for  Lansing, New York."  Regarding the lastL "The town [in New York state] is named after John Lansing," who "represented New York as one of three representatives at the Constitutional Convention in 1787."
(b) MRS degree
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRS_Degree
(c) The clause "The moving industry is a good-old-boys’ network" is grammatically wrong. It should be either "an old-boy network" or "an old boys' network."  You may find both in the Web, in the same pages if that is an online dictionary.

choi

(2) Valentina Zarya, Unraveling the Cashmere Conundrum; For Mongolian nomadic farmers, cashmere is the ultimate cash crop. But increased global demand is exacting its toll on the rugged lands where they raise their goats. Can the luxury garment industry help fix the problems?
http://fortune.com/2017/12/09/cashmere-mongolia-naadam/
("middlemen who sell the processed fabric for $150 per kilogram while herders themselves get only $20 of that. * * * * Matthew Scanlan and Diederik Rijsemus, the cofounders of cashmere startup Naadam. Neither has a background in fashion or textiles -- Scanlan worked in finance, Rijsemus in economics * * * The company was funded in 2014 when American Scanlan decided to pay a visit to his Dutch friend Rijsemus in the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar, where the latter was interning. * * * in 2016, Scanlan, the company's CEO * * * paid  [Mongolian herders direct] about $35 per kilo (a 75% premium) to get his pick of the best material, betting that by selling direct to consumers at a lower price point, Naadam could compete with industry mainstays like Loro Piana")
Note:
(a) Cashmere
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cashmere
(may refer to: "Cashmere wool from the Cashmere goat" or "Cashmere goat"))
(b)
(i) Loro Piana is a Italian family name. The family started the wool business "at the beginning of the 19th century * * * [After six generations in] 2013, LVMH purchased 80% of Loro Piana for €2 billion, the rest of shareholding remaining in Loro Piana family's hands [the two Loro Piana brothers/owners each became a billionaire]. * * * In 2017 the Loro Piana family reduced their 20% ownership holdings to 15%."  en.wikipedia.org (the first clause is found in the LVMH website.
https://www.lvmh.com/houses/fashion-leather-goods/loro-piana/
("Originally from Trivero in northern Italy, the Loro Piana family began trading wool in the early 1800s")
(ii) For most of the duration (before and after 2013), Loro Piana  has been based in Quarona.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarona
(iii)
(A) The meaning of the family name is not found in the Web. However, one may guess from Italian-English dictionary:
* piana (noun geminine): "plain"https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/piana
(B) Italian grammar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_grammar
(section 4.2 Possessive adjectives)
The word means "his," "her," or "their."
(iv) Product Origin. In the tab "Our World" at the top horizontal bar of the home page, undated
https://www.loropiana.com/en/our ... in/product_cashmere
("Loro Piana is the largest cashmere and baby cashmere manufacturer in the western world.  The finest lots of this precious fibre come from Northern China and Mongolia, where Loro Piana has offices in Beijing, Hong Kong and Ulan Baatar. * * * About 250 grams of this underfleece is obtained from each animal every year which, after the coarser outer fibres are removed, becomes no more than 100 grams. That is why cashmere is so precious")