Istanbul Trip (in a series of statements - photos without commentary follow)

-I traveled to Istanbul for a three-day orientation session.
-I discovered that airport security is not so crazy in Izmir and Istanbul as it is in the US.
-The flight to Istanbul was less than the time it takes for me to fly to Chicago from Minneapolis.
-The Taksim neighborhood on the European side of Istanbul looks very much like any other old European city (with the addition of mosques here and there).
-I discovered our hotel was close to the Pera Palace Hotel.
-Agatha Christie used to stay at the Pera Palace Hotel when she took the Orient Express.
-Pera Palace is an old school 19th century hotel with lots of marble.
-The Pera Palace is closed for renovations and restoration.
-I do not know what the lobby looks like except in pictures.
-Cats are as plentiful in Istanbul as they are in Izmir.
-People stay up late here.
-Orientation can be tiring if you are still struggling to get used to a new time schedule.
-I was not taught enough in history class about neither Constantine nor the Ottoman Empire.
-I learned a song in Turkish.
-For the most part I have Turkish pronunciation down pat.
-I need to build up a lexicon of useful words and phrases.
-The Hagia Sophia is one of the most fascinating places I've ever seen.
-The Hagia Sophia contains iconography architectural elements and calligraphy from both the Christian and Muslim religions.
-The Hagia Sophia must have been AMAZING when it was first completed and was covered in mosaic tiles.
-Mosques get their domed look from the Hagia Sophia.
-The dome of the Hagia Sophia was actually a part of the Christian-era architecture of the church.
-I kept singing Hagia Sophia to the tune of "Hava Nagila" but only in my head.
-The food here is making me put on weight again.
-There are about 50 cisterns under Istanbul.
-I toured the largest.
-These were made during the Christian era.
-The pillars used to support these structures were taken from Greek and Roman temples and are quite exquisite.
-Two carvings of the head of Medusa help prop up two pillars.
-Neither head is facing the right way.
-Jackie Chan filmed part of a film in this cistern.
-The Bosphorus is beautiful. The 4 hour cruise I took was excellent.
-I want to go back to Istanbul soon.
-I have a picture of the Blue Mosque below.
-I did not get to see the inside of the Blue Mosque.
-The pictures below are in no particular order.

Michael

I painted this picture in 2000, less than a year after my sister and I had been out to Tacoma, Washington to visit aunts and uncles and cousins. Becky and I repeated that journey a few weeks ago, returning nine years later to attend my cousin Ron's Wedding. I'll be posting pictures and commentary about that great trip in a subsequent post. But today, I wanted to write about Ron's youngest brother, Michael. I've been thinking about this post for a long time and wanted to know what to say, how to express my thoughts about my cousin. This painting is really a marker of how long it has been since Michael was with us.

This last trip to Washington, when Becky and I arrived at Aunt Hildy and Jim's and were seeing cousins and children of cousins we hadn't seen in years, I was happy and overwhelmed and a little shy (as I often am when I am seeing people I haven't seen in years. Becky is always much more comfortable talking to people and jumping right back into easy conversation than I. I take a bit of time to feel comfortable again). I went into the kitchen to give aunt Hildy a hug. Practically the first thing I noticed, among a patchwork of photos magneted to the refrigerator door was a photo of Michael staring back at me. It took me by surprise - his frank stare and slight smile, his jaw line, unbearded, was strong and angular, or so I remember it. I hadn't looked at a photo of my cousin for so long that the emotion of his not being there momentarily overwhelmed me.

Later, I saw Michael in my cousin Laurie's son, Christopher - the eyes, mannerisms, and even his open, accepting nature - all reminded me of Michael. Even later still, as I was putting my suitcase into the room where I'd be staying, sleeping in Michael's old bed with a quilt his sister had made for him, I had further reminders of that summer nine years ago. I looked down the hall and into my aunt's bedroom where the painting I'd done for her hung against the far wall. I remember thinking about how to approach painting Michael, about how I could make something for my aunt to remember him by. I must have gone to the Institute or the Walker not long before and seen some of Chuck Close's paintings. When I blew up the photograph Jim had taken of us on trip to Mt. Rainier on my birthday and printed a close up of Michael's face, I knew that emulating Close's approach of using individual squares and filtering the image through those cells was the right approach. I had no symbolic reason for taking this approach, but just knew that somehow it fit better than something more realistic or abstract.

I remember when I saw Michael nine years ago, for the first time in several years, I felt unsure of myself. We sat opposite each other in the living room of the place he and my other cousin Rob were living in. I initially felt the distances of time and space had separated us from the bond I'd once felt. Becky and I, after all, loved Michael and as children when we'd visit would devotedly follow him around. We loved all of our cousins, but Michael was only a few years older than us, closer to Eric's age, so he was stuck with our shadowing him. He never seemed to mind us playing with him and taking an interest in the things he was interested in. Both he and Rob - all of the siblings, in fact, were enormously talented and I was always inspired to be more creative around them.

One summer Aunt Hildy had brought Michael and Rob out to Minnesota for a visit. I remember Michael taking a great interest in a book he'd bought (I think at the Minnesota Zoo) about edible plants. On a visit to Washington a year or so later, I found that this interest wasn't just a passing fancy. In fact he brewed me a tea from roasted dandelion root. I remember the heady, roasted coffee-like taste. Later, when I'd tried it on my own, I failed to make anything that came close to that tea. Becky reminded me of the tree frogs he'd caught and showed us one summer when we were out visiting. Both he and Rob seemed to cultivate artistic abilities and interests that interested me as well. As far as I could see, Michael possessed a fairly deep inner life and a reserve of imagination that I appreciated. He and Rob valued things I (probably Becky and Eric too) valued - maps and old documents, books and fantastic stories, nature, and trying to capture or recreate small remnants of worlds and eras that no longer existed.

That day, nine years ago sitting across from Michael and both of us feeling initially uncomfortable, one of us happened to mention something from when we were children and suddenly the barrier was removed. We both felt connected again. I looked across and saw Michael's eyes smiling as he was remembering things from our childhood as cousins. He even had some of the maps of imaginary places he'd invented, and I remembered again how envious I was of his imagination and talents. The time Becky and I had with Ron, Rob, and Michael that last summer was special and I'm glad we got to have it - he was gone a little over a week later.

I write this and I am initially struck by how insufficient words are in really describing memories and feelings. The second thought that strikes me is that I somehow misrepresented Michael, got something wrong or missed some aspect of him that I should have mentioned. I didn't, for example, mention his flaws and I know he had some. He wasn't perfect and I'm sure his siblings could tell stories (we all have stories of our siblings' shortcomings), but I do know he was greatly loved by a lot of people and his departure saddened us all.

I'm still left with a tinge of worry about how I'm portraying him - I felt much the same way when I painted his portrait. But then, these are my memories associated with Michael, no one else's. Others have their thoughts and reminiscences. Together they all make up who my cousin was. In that respect, maybe my approach to the painting does work after all.

A Goddess, a Mortal, and a Painter

Once upon a time there was a goddess named Diana. Diana's interests included hunting, bathing in the woods, and preserving her virginity. One can immediately see the conflict of interest between the last two hobbies, but then who are we to question the gods?

One day, while Diana was pursuing her second interest (with the help of her ladies in waiting), a young lout named Acteon, also an avid hunter, came strolling through the woods, having separated himself from his hunting party. As he walked through the trees looking for his pals, his dogs, and his quarry, he happened to happen upon Diana who was taking her bath. Like any red-blooded young Roman mortal, he decided to take a peak and stare at this beautiful creature, not caring about the fact that even Roman gods and goddesses like a little privacy (we mortals are notorious for seeing things we shouldn't and then acting stupidly).

Unfortunately for Acteon, Diana saw him seeing her and decided to turn him into a stag whereupon Acteon was chased, hunted down, and killed by his own dogs.

Much much later, centuries after this story had first been told, another mortal (who was not Roman, but Dutch) by the name of Vermeer either liked this story so much, or had a patron who liked this story so much, that he decided to paint it. This painting was among his earliest, and while beautiful, was nowhere near as beautiful and not at all similar to the thirty or so other paintings he would go on to create. Most of his later paintings would seem much more mundane than this subject, for they were mostly domestic scenes of women sitting at windows reading letters, writing letters, weighing jewels, or playing musical instruments. Yet the silence and light in these paintings were so strong that they struck a nerve with countless viewers.

Nevertheless this masterful early attempt at painting an historical mythical subject gave some indication as to what was going to come:
-It acknowledges the viewer. Even though it is chaste (Diana's only getting a foot bath), it hints at a voyeurism (and therefore, a kind of implied eroticism) that implicates anyone who views the painting (the artist paints the work from the perspective of Acteon). This is an unnerving quality in many of Vermeer's later works where the subject is actually returning your stare, sometimes surprised, as if you have just startled them. At other times they glance at you serenely. Vermeer's most famous subject, his pearl earringed girl holds your gaze - you don't know if she's turning toward or away from you. She's held eternally at that midway point and she eternally commands our attention.
-It contains symbolic imagery to help tell the story. Diana is quickly identified (if you know your mythology) by the crescent moon tiara. But the more interesting symbol is that of her hound, which foreshadows the fact that in a matter of a few minutes, Acteon is going to be dog meat.
-Light is as important a player as any of the subjects in the work. This will not be immediatedly noticeable in the first picture I show here:
This is how I had always seen the painting in the art books; it never really jumped out at me. It's an early Vermeer, it's a bit formal, and it doesn't seem to convey any real emotion. But when I went to New York a few years ago to see an exhibition of 16 of Vermeer's paintings, I discovered the following: Part of "Diana and Her Companions" (as the painting is known) had been painted over by some former owner who believed the painting was too dark (Both in tone and subject? One wonders). At some point an unknown person decided to improve upon the work of one the the greatest painters ever to have lived by adding that cloudy blue sky in the upper-right-hand corner of the painting. Seen in this way, the painting loses much of its dramatic power. Luckily, the add-on was discovered during restoration and the work was restored to reflect Vermeer's original vision of the scene:

When I saw this painting at the Met, I was amazed to see what a difference it made removing that patch of blue sky. Now the painting seemed more sinister, more emotionally dark. Now, the light source shining on Diana and her companions was much more interesting to me and the shadowy attendant standing in the back now receded into the darkness and became somewhat goulish. To use a rather nerdy analogy that perhaps Kristin will best appreciate, it was like jumping immediately from year one to year four at Hogwarts. The painting now seemed more sinister, menacing.

Anyway, that's all I have to say about art for the moment. If you have some other ideas about these two versions of the same painting, post 'em here (the second picture of the restored version, by the way, is cropped in its online form, which is why you can only see the nose of the dog). Also, I think I had read something about that thistle growing in front of the dog. It must symbolize something - any ideas?

なんだこれや! ~or~ Nanda Koreya! (If the Hiragana doesn't show up on your computer)

I'd been seeing these statues around town for weeks. The first one I saw was in a frame shop window. I was biking along on my way to work when suddenly, I was arrested by this enormous sculpture of a rather corpulent woman clad only in red heels with a mud pack on her face. I was shocked as I'd never seen it in the shop before. I just stared and said, "What the hell is that?" If you've read a couple entries ago, you'll remember a smaller statue I took a picture of with Kanako at Cafe Praktica. Last time I went to Praktica, Ako-san told me a bit about the artist, whose picture was on the cover of a magazine sitting next to the sculpture. I told her I thought it would be fun to visit his studio and see his work.

The very next day, I was returning to work from break and got up to the office and as I set down my bag, Stacy said, "Did you see the car down in the back of the building?"
I replied, "No. Which car?"
"The one filled with the naked fat lady sculptures you've been talking about. I think the artist is here."
So I walked back out of the office and ran down to see if I could catch the artist. When I got to the lobby, I found a guy putting a fat naked lady in the back of a car, so I pointed to the sculpture and asked if he was the artist. He said no and gestured around the corner. I walked around the corner and now recognized the artist from his picture. We chatted for a bit. He showed me the poster for the exhibition and then he told me what Nanda Koreya means. It turns out my initial reaction to his sculpture was rather apt because it was the way he translated the exhibition title: "What the hell is it?" He gave me a poster with his number and name on it and invited me to come to see his studio.

Later in the week when I was telling my excellent Odyssey ladies on Wednesday afternoon about it, Mieko and Tomoko mentioned they'd like to come along (after I hinted a bit that it would be nice to have someone there to translate). So after a couple calls to the artist, Jin Nariyoshi, we settled upon this afternoon for a visit.

I biked down to City Hall and met Tomoko and Mieko at 11 for lunch. They took me to this excellent organic foods restaurant on the east side of Utsunomiya. This place was really great - set in a rural area, it was part house, part restaurant. We came in and were happy to see a woodburning stove burning away cheerfully in the corner (it was a bit drizzly and cold today). I hopped up the stairs to the loft seating and took a couple of pictures of my daytrip companions:
Here's Tomoko and Mieko again, but in sepia - the restaurant seemed very well suited to taking sepia tone photographs (which is why I took this snap):
Here's a shot of my excellent meal. I had a chicken and green onion quiche with onion soup and a plate full of lightly steamed assorted root vegetables and a homemade mustard mayo. There was also a side dish with a tofu mousse which was delicious! Doesn't it just ooze organicness?:
Next we headed to Mashiko to meet Nariyoshi-san at his house. After another call to get specific instructions, we found the house/studio which was set back in a small forest. We wondered at first whether or not we had the right place until we saw one of his large women sitting on the porch. Just as Ako had said, Mr. Nariyoshi was really nice - he invited us into his large, high ceilinged living room in which almost every spot on the floor was filled with stacks of Japanese style pottery - bowls, cups, vases, plates, and sculptures. Then he began to show us some of his works as well as some photographs. It turns out that our host is quite well-respected in the world of Japanese ceramics. One of his pieces sits in the BRITISH MUSEUM and according to the small placard under the photo of this piece, Mr. Nariyoshi is an exponent of a particular style of Korean pottery glazing that dates from the 14th and 15th centuries (if I remember right). After his wife brought in tea for each of us and went back to her studio (she's also a potter, though they both have separate work spaces), we talked more and took some pictures. Here I am with Nariyoshi and Mieko:
And here we are again, this time with Tomoko:
I also snapped a couple shots of some of his large ladies:

He explained that beauty was not just restricted to thin, super model types - he thought that large women were sexy and beautiful and wanted to showcase that sexiness. Then he looked at me and asked if I liked large women (owing I guess to all of my questions about the sculptures) - I smiled and explained that I had so many questions because what intrigued me was that a Japanese artist should choose a large caucasian woman as his subject (he mentioned that she is not based on any particular woman - tho' I thought she looked a bit like Dawn French from BBC comedy fame - but came from his imagination). We had a great visit and at the end, he brought out a small cell phone charm with the exhibition title on it, but even more important, he took out a calligraphy brush and on the back of an exhibition card, he artfully wrote the exhibition name and stamped it with his hanko - we all marveled at his beautiful calligraphic style:
Here's one more shot of Tomoko and Mieko in Mr. Nariyoshi's living room:
After a great visit, and an invitation to go out for drinks in Utsunomiya together, we bid farewell and headed back to the main street of Mashiko where Mieko looked (without result) for a matching green tea cup to replace one that had been chipped. Here's a shot of one of the stores we looked around in:
We stopped at a coffee shop for dessert and tea and coffee. This cafe was located in the same building where I'd made pottery nearly a year ago with Saki, Masaki, and Wasim. But between that and all the tea offered us at nearly every place we went, I had to keep going to the bathroom (even making a stop on our way back to Utsunomiya - I wonder what the kanji is for "He with the little bladder"?) Mieko dropped off Tomoko and I and I walked to City Hall where I'd left my bicycle this morning only to find that my bicycle was missing - I looked and looked and e-mailed Tomoko who met me and took me to the Police station nearby to report it stolen, but without the serial number, there wasn't much they could do about it - they did, however, suggest that perhaps the City Hall security people may have moved it if it was in a restricted place, so tomorrow I'll go look for it. Anyway, I walked home tonight and as I walked past the frame shop, I snapped this picture of the sculpture that resulted in today's great adventure (even if my bike was stolen):

Channeling My Inner Child

I think there are some albums written for children that end up transcending their original purpose and appealing to a broader audience. Take the soundtrack to "A Charlie Brown Christmas." I'm not sure if it was Charles Schultz's stroke of genius to use jazz artists to create the soundtrack for this animated special, but whoever's idea it was, it was a brilliant idea. Vince Guaraldi created the "Linus and Lucy" theme and "Christmastime is Here," now both classics.

In the same way, I think Jack Johnson's Curious George soundtrack is one of those albums whose tunes are so catchy and fun, that the parents who put the CD in for their kids get just as much fun out of it as their kids.

For me, my favorite transcendent kids album has to be Carole King's "Really Rosie." I remember first being shown the film of this in grade school - yes it was shown on a reel-to-reel projector complete with flying dust particles giving shape to the beam extending from the projector to the screen, and the strangely comforting flap of the film running through the projector. I think we watched it in first grade and soon after, my sister and I got the record at the library and listened to it over and over. This kids album has everything - Carole King's amazing, scratchy voice and New York accent (and great 70s era rock/folk piano playing), and illustrations and lyrics by artist extraordinaire, Maurice Sendak. To this day, my sister and I still listen to this unendingly listenable album and now that my sister has a little baby, she sings songs from this album to my niece.

Luckily, someone else on YouTube thought the children's special from which this album comes was important enough to share. Here's a clip from my one of my favorite songs on the album:

"Pierre"

Hanko

I bought a book on Japanese painting so I could try a different style. The beginning of the book shows how to carve a hanko which is the red stamp people use for official documents, art, and other things - it's a kind of personal signature. Luckily this book had pictures to show me how to make one out of an eraser. I made 4. Here's the result:

Pott'ry at Mashiko

About a month ago, I visited Mashiko with one of my students, her friend and her former teacher in Oyama. Mashiko is a cool little town in Tochigi that is famous for its pottery. Saki suggested we all go and try our hand at making some stuff. Today, I got the pottery back that I'd made, so I am posting pictures both from the day we made the stuff and ones I took today of the finished products.

Here's Wasim (Oyama teacher who trained with Michel - Hey, Wasim, give me the link to your blog again so I can put it on mine), Saki (my student), and Masaki (her friend and Wasim's student) - we stopped for soba and udon noodles before going to make pottery.

On our way there, Saki took us to this cool indigo operation where thread and cloth are dyed in this really intense indigo - all of these lids cover wells with the dye in them:

This woman gave us a demo on how to make various objet d'art - she made the whole thing look so effortless and I think I learned more from her ten minute demo than the spring I took ceramics in college:

Here's Saki looking tentatively at the wheel - speaking of the wheels, the operation is set up so that you sit either cross-legged or on your knees while you work with the clay - this way of sitting is comfortable for about two seconds after which your feet and legs fall asleep and you almost fall into your clay.

Masaki took to the wheel and created several pieces with aplomb (yes, I know I just used aplomb (and not long after using objet d'art) and I apologize):

Here's the planks with all of our work. We basically paid about $15.00 for unlimited clay and use of the wheels for an hour. Once we decided on the pieces we wanted to keep, we paid an additional fee per piece to have them glazed and fired (I chose three):

Here's Masaki finishing up her last piece:

And Saki and Wasim proudly gazing upon their work:

These are the kilns in which the pottery is (or was - not sure if these were still being used) fired:

Here's the gang at a shrine that Michel told us to check out up in the hills outside of Mashiko - this one was built in 1492:

Tonight Saki came to class and brought me my three pieces (which shrunk down by about 25% with firing). I was so excited as I unwrapped each piece and saw what a great job they did glazing each one. Sayaka, our head teacher loved them and was surprised that I had made them.

Here they are:

First, a squat sort of vase I made - this one is my favorite:

This is a green tea cup that I made - not my favorite after firing, but it holds tea:

And last, a sake pitcher that shrunk down - the shrinkage (to use a Costanza-ism) may disqualify it from being a proper pitcher, so it may have to be a vase

I want to go again soon!

Too much time on my hands

This idea for a small movie had been running through my head for a few weeks and I decided over the last two days to see if I could actually make the thing. I'm pretty happy with the result. I've been a fan of the 40s/50s vocal band The Pied Pipers for a number of years now- they used to sing with Tommy Dorsey and back up Frank Sinatra in his early crooning years. Well, I got one of their albums from Amazon a couple of months ago and when I heard this song, it made me so happy that I wanted to do something with it.

It didn't take very long to make the movie, but did require me to collect footage of produce in the grocery store (which was a little embarrassing), and engage in foolish antics in my apartment (which was more fun than embarrassing). So anyway, I hope you enjoy it:

Hiragana Practice

Okay, here's a sample of my hiragana - I spliced together some videos and tinkered with the colors and aging features - I hope you enjoy:

Hiragana

I decided to play around with some of the features on iMovie. Then I broke iMovie. My parents brought my iBook installation discs and I finally figured out how to properly compress a movie file for QuickTime. Here's a short film I shot while practicing hiragana one night and listening to Norah Jones:

Pictures from the last week and a pop can full of grape jello

Well, the spring cherry blossoms are in full bloom - these past few days have been perfect for cherry blossom viewing and picture taking. Here are a few I took over the last few days:

The first four pictures were taken at Hachimanyama Park which has over 700 cherry trees and a big ugly tower in the middle of it. Here's a nice old cluster of blossoms:
Near the park's entrance is this beautiful old cherry tree that is helped along with a lattice framework and some support structures:

And here is our young Australian adventurer, Scott, climbing up to the blossoms. Michel and I have both commented on the fact that Scott has a way of walking into our photos (you'll see evidence of this again, further down):
This is a buddha statue to remember babies - from what I understand, it is a way to commemorate babies who were stillborn, died in infancy, or were aborted:
These next four pictures were taken at the Futaarayama Shrine in the center of town:
As you can see, this shrine - built about 1,600 years ago is a great way to escape the rather dull, Sovietesque architecture that makes up most of the city (you can see a bit of it peaking out from behind the entrance). For a great book on some of the more frightening aspects of Japanese modern culture and what is happening to the environment, read Alex Kerr's "Dogs and Demons: The Fall of Modern Japan."
Ah, there's Scott wandering into another photo. Scott loves cherry blossoms almost as much as he loves tequila:
Here's a close up of a blossom. This little flower transforms people around here - everyone goes out to the parks for hanami parties (cherry blossom viewing parties) and have large picnics and drink tons of sake and shochu:
Yesterday I finally found St. John's Anglican Church which I'd been looking for ever since I'd arrived. Well, it happens to be about three minutes away from my apartment by bicycle. I decided to attend church there this morning for Palm Sunday. The church is made from oya stone which is mined right here in little Ustunomiya. The inside of the church was really nice - a lot like many English Anglican churches I'd seen in Britain. This is the first church service I'd ever been to in my life where I had to remove my shoes before entering, but as that's a fairly normal thing to do whenever you enter many places in Japan, I wasn't surprised. The service was pretty much like the other Anglican/Episcopal services I'd been to except I couldn't understand the language. Because I have learned hiragana fairly well I can sing along with the hymns, but am a bit slow so I don't sing very loudly. Also, unless I recognize the hymn tune, I don't really know what I'm singing until I get to the "Amen" at the end which is in katakana, which I can't read, but which I can understand because katakana is used for foreign words in the Japanese language. I'll go back next week for Easter services. One of the ladies in the church spoke English fairly well (I should say amazingly well as my Japanese is crap) and told me that the other rector would be there next week and that he spoke English really well and had glob-trotted quite a bit. Here's the church:
After a stop home to change, I hopped on my bike and headed down to the JR train station where the buses also leave from. I grabbed a bus to the Utsunomiya Municipal Park of Nature and Arts - about a twenty minute bus ride. This turned out to be a great little outing for me as I got to see more grass and trees than I'd seen since I'd arrived. Here's a picture of a small pond on the museum grounds:
The exhibit was a retrospective of a Japanese artist called Yasutomo Watanabe - really great stuff. The main collection was good as well and I was happy to see some Chagall and this Magritte:
Here are some of the beautiful trees that I walked through and I wanted to take a picture of the beware of snakes signs I saw everywhere, but there were always people around and I felt stupid. I can't read the signs themselves, but they have this cartoon snake with eyes that look like 50s style cat glasses - like maybe they had "The Far Side" cartoon in mind when they drew this image. Anyway, here are the beautiful cedars and bamboo I walked through:
Here's a sepia tone version of the pond which came out great cuz the sun kinda haloed around the tops of the trees in a really cool way:
As I waited for the bus, I decided to get a little something to drink at the vending machine and I saw this can of grape jello. This seemed odd, but I had full faith in the Japanese - usually this sort of thing comes with a top that fully opens and a little spoon cleverly attached on the bottom of the cup. Well, I put in my coins and out came a pop can with grape jello in it. I opened it and put my mouth to it and nothing came out. So I began noisily slurping at it and thought how dumb I must look. I managed to slurp out about a third of the jello, when I decided to put my thumb over the opening and shake it until it was in small enough pieces to get through the opening. This worked, but man, what a silly concept: