this inkan-stamp is made of two characters: the one to the left represents the phonetic sound "wa" and is for peace/harmony; the one to the right represents the phonetic sound "to" and "tt" and is the character for describing a place, hence: "watt" = "place of peace" (note the irony) much thanks to alain bosshart, who also tells me: "this inkan uses traditional kanji characters which are closer to their chinese origins. but, one has to keep in mind that, the japanese kanji, and the aesthetic with this language itself, actually is about getting the essence or idea behind these characters/words through their representational picture form. that is precisely why so much emphasis is placed on the right number and order of strokes when writing these kanji, and why the language can be more sparse and about hinting at conveying particulars rather than being something direct which can only be read in one way." loop back to mike watt's hoot page