Now that’s my idea of “free stuff”.
pity, had to be conversant…
so ya get the head wine makers from 6-8 different wineries showing up to outdo each other with the stuff that was small batched for themselves…
Sorta like haute couture as opposed to prêt-à-porter, eh?
one half of it
The other side is these people spend their time walking around the vineyard tasting dirt. 
an’ no one makes ‘em stand around in a gallery sayin’ stuff to …
Sounds like a logical career move if you’ve got pica.
farmer/chemist/artists … good bunch!
Bling or no bling, pica chums or no, Denny, you shouldn’t refer to your better half as “the wife”. If she happens to scan your online activities and sees that impersonal reference, you might not only be cleaning the stable; you may be sleeping there, too.
I’m still warm
" do find it odd that someone who just a few years ago said the following about their new/used flute:
I received a keyless Wilkes D flute two days ago. It’s a magnificent instrument with an ornate silver machined end cap, and with wide silver machined rings.
would set themselves up as a champion of minimalism." Latticino.
Ah but, yeah but, no but, Ah but, yeah but. Chris’ work is in good taste. The machined crown and rings are in just plain silver, together with African blackwood. Classic and traditionally English, no glass, gold, diamonds, rubys, or Graceland /Versailles off the trolley extravagant madness 
steampacket is right
minimalist doesn’t mean nil, just minimum
and
zen aesthetic is an aesthetic, not a lack
Interesting that we have a concurrent thread about the use or overuse of musical ornamentation - many seem to think it’s no longer Irish if it isn’t frilled with ornaments at every possible pause, regardless of whether the tune is recognizable anymore - and yet, put a bauble on the end of a cap, and the aesthetic beauty of the flute is destroyed.
Both (well-played ITM and the flute it is played upon), it seems to me, require a sense of the tasteful, and that - like individual taste - you either have, or you don’t. Too much is too much; not enough, and it’s just plain and uninteresting.
Now, paying for fancy endcaps or engraved wood is a completely different issue than whether they are beautiful or not. Many here prefer plain blackwood and silver (myself included), but lathe a flute from some highly grained olivewood, and folks will not only drool, but pay extra…
Didn’t think I had so much to say on this topic… must get back to work…
talasiga wrote:
zen aesthetic is an aesthetic, not a lack
wabi/sabi.
I hope it’s understood that my taste is the only one that’s actually tasteful…
I still say to wedge a nice marble in the end of the flute and be done with it.
Casey,
I have a blackwood flute of yours. The head is lined with metal, along with a metal tuning slide. It features five ornamental rings that, I think, are made of polished bone for an ivory effect. How many did you make with this design, and out of curiosity, what price would it fetch today? It’s a damn fine flute, btw, and I am NOT interested in selling it.
ooo Let’s see some pics please.
BTW Casey, I think the endcaps on your flutes are very intricate and fancy! It is a very nice ornament and display of fine artwork.
and shibu!
Strictly speaking, in talasiga’s context “shibu” is a noun that means astringent juice or sap, as from an unripe persimmon. It might be a typo, for in Japanese aesthetics, the terms “shibumi” (noun) and “shibui” (adj) are of more general currency. From this page at the Denshi Jishō website concerning the adjective “shibui”:
1: tasteful (clothing); cool; an aura of refined masculinity;
2: astringent; sullen; bitter (taste); raspy (voice);
3: grim; quiet;
4: sober; stingy
“Cool” in this sense is more akin to “reserved”, “subdued”, or “austere”, ideas which don’t exclude temperature aesthetically; the air’s gentle but bracing touch on the skin in the context of a chill grey pre-spring day before the leaves have sprouted might fall in this category of cool-shibui. For the more prosaically general idea of cool temperature sensations, “suzushii” is usual. Concerning the noun “shibumi”:
good taste; astringency; refinement
So beware. If you ask a Japanese if your flute has shibu, you might get the answer, “How should I know? Were you eating over it? Why don’t you just wash it to be on the safe side?”…all of which is to say that I’ve never encountered “shibu” used in an aesthetic sense; but of course this may be a colloquialism that I missed. There are far better and more experienced Japanese speakers on this site; perhaps someone will chime in.
That’s the second pedant’s screed from me already now in this thread. I’m not proud of this, you know. 
yes maybe Nanohedron might like to teach Mr Oshawa the semantics of the Japanese word.
Just to give an example from my own language (hindi).
Rasa or ras in common parlance means juice as in apple juice, orange juice etc.
The word is also used in a discussion of aesthetics to mean spiritual flavour or taste.
Native speakers are quite adept at discerning semantic from context.
Just like the mention of flute in this forum does not mean to us a groove in a column. We are not discussing architecture here.
No need to be snippy. I’m just sayin’. And didn’t I allow for the possible colloquiality of “shibu”? And didn’t I call upon my betters (in this you won’t qualify)? Just never heard it used so when I was over there - ever - and there you have it. And by the way, it’s Ohsawa, not Oshawa. It’s not even his real surname (Sakurazawa), but from his time in France when lore has it he was inspired to use the idiom, “Oh, ça va” (“I’m doing fine”) as a new nom de plume. Conveniently enough, Ōsawa sounds Japanesey and might translate to “big swamp/marsh/mountain-stream/valley/dale”. “Oshawa” doesn’t mean anything, unless you’re putting an honorific (an odd and improbable thing in a name) before “shawaa”, which is a shower. As in a bath, like. I’m pretty sure Sakurazawa doesn’t translate to “cherry swamp”.
Anyway, if anyone is going to be doing any teaching, it will be he, not I, and likely in my dreams, as he shed off his mortal coil in 1966.