66x96cm; grafite s/colorplus, 120grs.

 

Eidolons (Walt Whitman)

 

I met a seer,

Passing the hues and objects of the world,

The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,

To glean eidolons.

 

Put in thy chants said he,

No more the puzzling hour nor day, nor segments, parts, put in,

Put first before the rest as light for all and entrance-song of all,

That of eidolons.

 

Ever the dim beginning,

Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle,

Ever the summit and the merge at last, (to surely start again,)

Eidolons! eidolons!

 

Ever the mutable,

Ever materials, changing, crumbling, re-cohering,

Ever the ateliers, the factories divine,

Issuing eidolons.

 

Lo, I or you,

Or woman, man, or state, known or unknown,

We seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build,

But really build eidolons.

 

The ostent evanescent,

The substance of an artist's mood or savan's studies long,

Or warrior's, martyr's, hero's toils,

To fashion his eidolon.

 

Of every human life,

(The units gather'd, posted, not a thought, emotion, deed, left out,)

The whole or large or small summ'd, added up,

In its eidolon.

 

The old, old urge,

Based on the ancient pinnacles, lo, newer, higher pinnacles,

From science and the modern still impell'd,

The old, old urge, eidolons.

 

The present now and here,

America's busy, teeming, intricate whirl,

Of aggregate and segregate for only thence releasing,

To-day's eidolons.

 

These with the past,

Of vanish'd lands, of all the reigns of kings across the sea,

Old conquerors, old campaigns, old sailors' voyages,

Joining eidolons.

 

Densities, growth, facades,

Strata of mountains, soils, rocks, giant trees,

Far-born, far-dying, living long, to leave,

Eidolons everlasting.

 

Exalte, rapt, ecstatic,

The visible but their womb of birth,

Of orbic tendencies to shape and shape and shape,

The mighty earth-eidolon.

 

All space, all time,

(The stars, the terrible perturbations of the suns,

Swelling, collapsing, ending, serving their longer, shorter use,)

Fill'd with eidolons only.

 

The noiseless myriads,

The infinite oceans where the rivers empty,

The separate countless free identities, like eyesight,

The true realities, eidolons.

 

Not this the world,

Nor these the universes, they the universes,

Purport and end, ever the permanent life of life,

Eidolons, eidolons.

 

Beyond thy lectures learn'd professor,

Beyond thy telescope or spectroscope observer keen, beyond all mathematics,

Beyond the doctor's surgery, anatomy, beyond the chemist with his chemistry,

The entities of entities, eidolons.

 

Unfix'd yet fix'd,

Ever shall be, ever have been and are,

Sweeping the present to the infinite future,

Eidolons, eidolons, eidolons.

 

The prophet and the bard,

Shall yet maintain themselves, in higher stages yet,

Shall mediate to the Modern, to Democracy, interpret yet to them,

God and eidolons.

 

And thee my soul,

Joys, ceaseless exercises, exaltations,

Thy yearning amply fed at last, prepared to meet,

Thy mates, eidolons.

 

Thy body permanent,

The body lurking there within thy body,

The only purport of the form thou art, the real I myself,

An image, an eidolon.

 

Thy very songs not in thy songs,

No special strains to sing, none for itself,

But from the whole resulting, rising at last and floating,

A round full-orb'd eidolon.

 

Below summarizes full ARTICLE downloadable at papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1095620

 

Mourning Miranda

 

CHARLES D. WEISSELBERG

University of California, Berkeley - School of Law (Boalt Hall)

California Law Review, Forthcoming

 

Abstract:

The article presents new field research about police interrogation tactics and training and discusses that research in light of recent science literature and judicial decisions. I argue that the safeguards of Miranda v. Arizona have become ineffective, not because police are deliberately disobeying Miranda, but because officers have learned how to take advantage of rulings that have critically weakened Miranda's supposed protections.

 

Miranda's warnings and waivers were intended to afford custodial suspects an informed choice between speech and silence, and prevent involuntary statements. But there never was evidence to show that a system of warnings and waivers could actually protect the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Since Miranda was decided, the Supreme Court has encouraged police practices that have effectively gutted Miranda's safeguards. This paper presents police training materials that are not generally available to the public. Training is a primary link between the Court's pronouncements and the way in which interrogations are actually conducted. Combined with the social science literature, these training resources demonstrate how the warning and waiver regime coheres with a sophisticated psychological approach to police interrogation, rather than operate apart from it, as the Court intended.

 

I also argue that Miranda is now detrimental to our criminal justice system. It is bad enough that Miranda's vaunted safeguards appear not to afford meaningful protection to suspects. But following Miranda's hollow ritual often forecloses a searching inquiry into the voluntariness of a statement. I am skeptical that the courts may retool Miranda's procedures. I suggest other possibilities, including legislation.

 

Keywords: Police interrogation, Miranda, Confession law, Police training

 

She wears the "Mpooro Engorio" or wedding necklace. Made with Doum fibers bound together with cohered cloth strips. A highly prized necklace given at the time of marriage.

 

Pushed away by their neighbours, Rendille henceforth inhabit a vast territory in one of Kenya's most arid regions: the Kaisut Desert. It is located between Lake Turkana and the Chalbi Desert.

They are semi-nomadic, both nomad and pastoralist. Clans live in temporary settlement called gobs. Gobs are usually near wells dug and are given the name of the clan, subclan or the elder of the family. They never stay long at the same place to look for water sources and pasturing areas. They have to move 3 to 5 times a year. Villages are typically made of two dozen houses with about 120 individuals. They are composed of a group of semi-spherical huts made of branches and covered with leather or canvas. Women are in charge of taking the houses apart and putting them back in the new location. Near them, an enclosure of crabbed branches protects camels for the night. Each kind of livestock (camels, sheep, goats, cattle) have a separate camp that is taken cared of by people of a different age-set. Unlike other pastoral tribes, the Rendille favour camels rather than cattle, because they are better suited to the environment. They depend heavily on these animals for many of their daily needs: food, milk, clothing, trade and transport. They are skilled craftsmen and make many different decoration or ornaments. Rendile warriors often wear proudly a distinctive visor-like hairstyle, dyed with red ochre. As for the women, they wear several kilos beads. The Rendille receive empooro engorio beaded collars for marriage, made of palm fibers, girafe or elephant hairs. Like the Maasai with cows, camels are bled in order to drink their blood. They are closely aligned with the Samburu, by economic and kinship's ties. They have often adopted their language. Marriage is not allowed within one's own clan, and is arranged by parents as for most tribes. Each wife live in her own home with her children, and mothers have a high status. Society is strongly bound by family ties.

They still believe in their God, called Wak or Ngai. They also have fortune-tellers who predict the future, and perform sacrifices for rain. Special ceremonies take place at a child's birth. A ewe goat is sacrificed if it is a girl, a ram if a boy. The girl is blessed 3 times while 4 for the boy. In the same way, mother drinks blood for 3 days for a babygirl, 4 days for a babyboy. The weeding ceremony takes time. The prospective groom must give the bridewealth (gunu) to the bride's family: 4 female and 4 male camels (half for the father, the remaining camels for the rest of the family). One of them is eaten at the ceremony. The bride wears jewellery made of glass and metal, necklaces of beads and wire, headbands, and a large circular earings. She will join her husband's family after marriage. The elders discuss problems in a ritual circle called Nabo, in which women are allowed to enter. They also meet there to pray, receive guests and perform ceremonies.

 

© Eric Lafforgue

www.ericlafforgue.com

 

A diorama that's sort of failed to really cohere: Spidey facing down the Sinister Six while lots of other stuff goes on in the background. I'll probably photograph the minifgures at some point, since they came out best of all.

Humble mug with bulbous body. In the tall rim zone two warriors taming a horse, and swastikas. This scene is one of the earliest depiction of human figurine in vase painting.

Here the painter has felt freer to experiment and has painted a three-figure group: two men with a horse between them. Although the composition falls to cohere, and the three elements remain visually separate, this is a very significant step forward in the development of Geometric painting. We have here a descriptive, not merely a decorative juxtaposition, which reflects a real relationship between the warriors and horse. This is still a long way from narrative. It is no more than a generic statement. But it is the kind of statement that could not be made by the isolated figures which preceded it. Here, already, dominant characteristic of Greek art, its preoccupation with rendering the actual appearances and events of the visible world.

 

Source: John Carter, “Narrative Art in the Geometric Period”

 

Attic geometric mug

800 - 775 BC. I

Athens, Kerameikos, Museum Inv. no. 2159

   

Sometimes I love a photograph for no good reason. I put this photograph in a sale, and nobody bought it, and then I looked at it more closely and began to see its wonders. The first is the way the blues move across the photo, right to left in my view, but you can have it left to right if you want. It starts out with the woman's vivid blue hat, then the blue jeans of the man, some slight blue of whatever he's holding, subtle blue highlights in the woman's hair, her scarf or whatever that is, and then very faint blue in the arm of the scrunched up sweater worm by the man on the extreme left.

 

And look at the orange snake that angles down in the upper right quadrant and directs the eye to the center, where various tones chime with the snake.

 

The graininess does not bother me. I like it. The woman in the foreground looks like she had powder burns on her face.. I hope not, or I hope she shot the risht person.

 

The. randomness of areas of interest in a photo can make a good photograph cohere .It's not a necessity; just one of the things that can make for a very dood photo.

The flowers typically appear in March to May and persist into Autumn, sometimes persisting into the Winter.

 

They are typically about 1–1.5 inches in diameter and are covered with rusty hairs.

 

The flowers are unisexual and greenish in color.

 

Staminate flowers in terminal racemes two to three inches long, the pistillate in a solitary head on a slender peduncle borne in the axil of an upper lea (see bottom right of picture).

 

Staminate flowers destitute of calyx and corolla, but are surrounded by hairy bracts. Stamens indefinite; filaments short; anthers introrse. Pistillate flowers with a two-celled, two-beaked ovary, the carpels produced into a long, recurved, persistent style.

 

The ovaries all more or less cohere and harden in fruit.

 

There are many ovules but few mature. (wikipedia)

 

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Not 100% happy with the result (I have a long way to go before I can master light properly...)

 

Tomorrow I'll leave for my Easter holidays and when I'll be back, the flowers will be probably gone.

Topcon RE-2 with RE.Auto-Topcor 1.8/58

 

Meanwhile I have some interesting lenses with Exakta mount laying around here, and the best camera I could attach them to is actually an Exa 500 - so far. At the last camera fair I found that nice, black RE-2 - with Exakta bayonet.

 

Topcon (Tokyo Optical Company Nippon) got the honor to present the first 35 mm SLR with TTL-metering on the market. The Topcon RE Super from 1962 was innovative and spectacular, it directly came with open-aperture-metering, interchangeable viewer screens, interchangeable viewfinder and attachable motor drive too. The built-quality was outstanding and the camera became a serious competitor of the Nikon F. Until 1973 two updates followed, the Super D and the Super DM. That trio is cohere and it is sought-after, especially in Japan. And it has two little companions, the Topcon RS, which is a RE Super without exposure meter, and that RE-2, the budget version. No interchangeable viewfinder or screens, no motor compatibility, no DOF-preview and other details, but (ha!) unlike the RE Super it sports a Copal Square S shutter. However, the RE-2 didn't sell well, from its introduction in 1965 to the end of production in 1970 only 50.000 were sold, I read (serial numbers started from 5.600.001, mine has the number 5.650.256, so there should be some more copies).

The RE-2 acts like a tool, so the operation is not always convenient: the film advance lever requires a stroke of 180°, the shutter speed dial is not placed very well, the exposure meter has a dedicated switch (just on/off) beside the lens release lever. If the exposure meter is active, a "paddle" (pointer with an eye) appears in the viewer, for a correct exposure a second pointer has to be matched with it, this is the only display in the viewer. BTW, the viewer is really brilliant, much better than the one of the Minolta SRT-101, which was introduced one year later. A very characteristic feature of those cameras is the placement of the CdS-cell: it is integrated in the mirror, so it works independent of the attached viewfinder. You can see a cross-pattern there, it consists of slots which are cut into the mirror, so you have a loss of light of 7%. The width of the slots differs, so it possible to weight the incoming light in a certain way.

 

Lenses. Some websites report, that not all lenses with Exakta mount are compatible, the aperture coupling levers can cause trouble. I have no difficulties with my lenses, I can even mount the Mamiya-Sekor F.C. 1.7/58 when I unscrew its aperture coupling from the arm. And now to the Topcor RE.Auto 1.8/58. It was "just inclusive" and it turned out, that it is a real gem. The mechanical quality is incredible, top notch. The focus ring runs super smooth, nothing is rickety, even the sound of the clicks promises top quality. The silver finish seems to be an anti-dirt-coating, the lens is amazingly clean. Topcon made 3 Versions of the RE 1.8/58, but I can't assign my exemplar correctly, at least I know it is an 6/5-design (the problem I have is, that my sn has 8 digits and not 7, like always reported). Those Topcor lenses are also sought-after, the seller offered me the RE 1.4/58 for 200 €, that is a bit more than for a non-Leica 1.4/50 prime lens. Unfortunately Topcon went for the Exakta mount with its small diameter, so super fast lenses were not possible. The mount is modified, RE.auto lenses and the former F.auto lenses have an automatic aperture, RE lenses have a coupled f-stop ring for open-aperture metering in addition.

The Divine Spirit is infinite, yet it dwells in forms and inspires likeness, and thus truth enters into forms and signs.” But while landscapes portrayed the vastness and grandeur of Nature, the garden revealed her intimate aspect. All forms of art are the outward and visible expression of Ch’i, the Cosmic Breath or Energy, with which all creation must be in accord, whether it be painting, poetry, music, or the creation of a garden. Indeed, all these arts developed side by side, for the Chinese scholar was expected to be capable of interpreting the same inspiration in all three arts together and the place of both their inspiration and expression was most usually the garden, this term being applied also to the rural retreat of a sage or hermit where in some remote and beautiful scenery a hut had been built and round it trees planted. In a well-designed garden it should be difficult to distinguish between the work of man and Nature. One should “borrow scenery from Nature” and the ideal place was “among trees in the mountains.” Wherever it was, the garden was a place of quiet, meditation, and communion with Nature, whether in wild scenery beside a waterfall, or a trickling stream, or in a bamboo grove, or the courtyard of a city dwelling. The garden is “the natural home of man” and house and garden were situated according to feng-shui (wind and water) influences in harmony with the currents of Ch’i; these were held in balance in both the house and garden, as in Nature, by the yin-yang forces. The yin lunar and yang solar powers were represented by the yin valleys and waters and the yang mountains and sky with all their endless yang and yin qualities such as sunshine and shadow, height and depth, heat and cold. However small the space utilized, the garden was never laid out as a flat expanse from which all could be viewed at once. This removal of any definite boundary made for succession, expansion, rhythm, and a sense of unlimited time and space. The garden, like Nature, is ever-changing, a place of light and shade with a life-breath (Ch’i yün) which is in harmony with the rhythms of the seasons and their contrasts in weather. Irregularity of line also suggests movement and life. “Everything that is ruled and symmetrical is alien to free nature.”[3] Or, as it has been said: “The awareness of change, the interaction symbolized by the yin-yang theory, has caused Chinese gardeners to seek irregular and unexpected features which appeal more to the imagination than to the reasoning faculty of the beholder. There were certain rules and principles for gardening, but these did not lead to any conformity. The basic elements were the same for landscape painting, shan shui or ‘mountain and water’”[4] which might be imposing scenery or simply a pond and rocks. The smallest space could be converted into an effect of depth, infinite extension, and mysterious distance; groves, rockeries, bushes, winding paths, all helped to lure on beyond the immediate scene. As Rowley says of Western and Chinese art: “We restrict space to a single vista as though seen through an open door; they suggest the unlimited space of nature as though they had stepped through that open door.” The entire garden must be considered in association and relationship with all things in Nature. Chang Ch’ao says: “Planting flowers serves to invite butterflies, piling up rocks serves to invite the clouds, planting pine trees serves to invite the wind,… planting banana trees serves to invite the rain, and planting willow trees serves to invite the cicada.” These are all traditional symbolic associations. In the past in China, though man was the mediator between Heaven and Earth, he was not the measure of the universe; his place was simply to maintain the balance and harmony between the yin and the yang. It was Nature which was the Whole, and controlling cosmic power. The garden helped man in his work of maintaining harmony; it also had an ethical significance and influence. According to Ch’ien Lung it had “a refreshing effect upon the mind and regulated the feelings” preventing man from becoming “engrossed in sensual pleasures and losing strength of will.” Its pleasures were simple, natural, and spiritual. A Suchou poet wrote of the garden: “One should enter it in a peaceful and receptive mood; one should use one’s observation to note the plan and pattern of the garden, for the different parts have not been arbitrarily assembled, but carefully weighed against each other like the pairs of inscribed tablets placed in the pavilions,[6] and when one has thoroughly comprehended the tangible forms of objects one should endeavor to attain an inner communication with the soul of the garden and try to understand the mysterious forces governing the landscape and making it cohere.” The garden was for all seasons with their changing moods and colors, flowers and trees, so the pavilion and open gallery were necessary for enjoyment in the heat of summer or the cold of winter and became an integral part of the scenery. Even in winter one sat out in the pavilion to admire the beauties of the snow and to watch the budding of the almond and plum blossom. A portable brazier of glowing charcoal kept one warm and a large brazier was used to melt the snow to make tea. The garden was particularly evocative by moonlight and the new and full moons, times of spiritual power, had their own festivals, especially the festival of the mid-autumn moon. Other festivals were also celebrated in the pavilion or garden; the vernal equinox, observed on the twelfth day of the second month of the Chinese year, was known as the Birthday of the Flowers. Pavilions and galleries obviously had to blend with their surroundings. The Yüan Yeh says: “Buildings should be placed so as to harmonize with the natural formation of the ground.” When pavilions were connected by galleries these followed the rise and fall and curves of the land or winding of the waters which were often crossed by bridges, bringing in all the symbolism of the crossing of the waters, of transition, of communication between one realm or plane and another, as well as of man as mediator, occupying the central position between the great powers. Added beauty and symbolism was introduced in the “moon bridge,” a lovely half-circle which when reflected in the clear water below formed the perfect circle of the full moon. Roofs were curved and painted and the lattice work of the balustrades was lacquered and painted in harmonizing and symbolic colors. Harmony and proportion had to be maintained but symmetry was alien to Nature, thus the garden contained no such thing as clipped lawns or hedges or stiff geometrically designed flower beds, or flowers marshaled in rows or patterns. And “landscaping” had to absorb buildings and, like planted trees, make them look as if they had grown there. “One erects a pavilion where the view opens and plants flowers that smile in the face of the spring breeze.”[7] It was a place for both relaxation and active enjoyment, for solitary meditation and study, or for convivial gatherings for friends to meet and drink tea or wine or take al fresco meals. There they composed poetry and music, painted, practiced calligraphy or discussed philosophy. One amusement was to compose a poem in the time that it took a floating wine cup and saucer to drift from one end to the other on a meandering water-course set in the floor of the pavilion. A poet failing to complete his poem in the time had to catch and empty the cup. These water-courses could also be constructed in symbolic forms such as the swastika, or the cross-form of the Chinese character for the number ten, or in the shape of a lotus or open flower. Sometimes the water tumbled over small waterfalls or rocks. Pavilions were given names such as the Pavilion of the Hanging Rainbow, the Fragrance of the Lotus, the Secret Clouds, the Eight Harmonious Tones, Invitation, or Contemplation, of the Moon, Welcoming Spring, Pleasant Coolness, and so on. In some gardens there were Halls of the Moon; these were constructed in the shape of a hemisphere, the vaulted ceiling painted to represent the nocturnal sky with innumerable small windows of colored glass depicting the moon and stars. The total effect was one of the subdued light of a summer’s night. Sometimes the floor was planted with flowers, but more usually it contained running water, the moon and water being closely allied: “The moon washes its soul in the clear waters,” but although moon and waters are both yin water is symbolically related to the sun since the waters catch and reflect back the sun’s light, the yang. These halls could be large enough for holding banquets or of a smallness suitable for intimate sitting about in conversation or listening to music and poetry. Here, in the garden, where heaven and earth meet, music and poetry become the natural form of the expression of harmony. While the pavilion was built in and for the garden and was open to it, this breaking down of the distinction between in and out of doors applied also to the dwelling house which was not only sited for feng-shui but for fitting as naturally as possible into the scenery and giving access so immediately to the garden that there seemed no dividing line. Doors either did not exist or were left open. (Socially, closed doors were not considered courteous since they implied exclusion, while the open door symbolized the welcome extended by the essentially outgoing Chinese temperament with its spontaneous and natural relationships developed over the ages in the highly socialized life of a large family). Doors were often only a means of enhancing a view into the garden or to the scenery beyond, such as the moon door, a beautifully placed circle framing some special outlook. Not only was every aspect used to its full natural advantage but “if one can take advantage of a neighbor’s view one should not cut off the communication, for such a ‘borrowed prospect’ is very acceptable.” The house opened on to the garden and the garden came into the house; rooms opened on to the courtyards where flowering trees grew and ferns and flowers fringed a central pool, usually with golden carp swimming in it, for the garden was a place for animal and bird life also. Indeed, animals and plants were not considered the only ‘living’ things; everything shares in the cosmic power and mountains and rivers also ‘live.’ Nor was it at all unusual for the house to go out into the garden, for the lover of nature would move a bed out of doors, beside some special tree, shrub, or flower which was coming into bloom, so that no stage of its development and beauty would be lost; or one would sit up all night to enjoy the effect of the moonlight. “The moonlight lies like glittering water over the countryside. The wind sighs in the trees and gently touches the lute and the book that lie on the couch. The dark rippled mirror of the water swallows the half-moon. When day dawns one is awakened by the fresh breeze; it reaches the bed and all the dust of the world is blown out of one’s mind.” The garden was not, however, merely aesthetic but creative and a reminder of, and contact with, the creative forces and the great cycle of the seasons, birth, maturity, decay, death and rebirth. The merging of the native Taoism with imported Buddhism in Ch’an, or Zen, carried on the tradition of the intimate relationship between man and Nature. Ch’an Buddhism and gardens were two facets of Chinese inspiration which were adopted and carried on by the Japanese, but in later decadent times the original symbolism of the garden as a reflection of Paradise was lost and gardens became mere pleasure grounds, except where attached to monasteries in which much of the symbolism was taken over and where the association with meditation remained. In those gardens of effete times artificial extravagances crept in; windows were made in shapes which bore no relationship to symbols, such as teapots, animals, vases, and fans, even if some of these forms had, in fact, a symbolic content. But these aberrations were stigmatized by the Yüan Yeh as “stupid and vulgar” and “intelligent people should be careful in such matters.” (Shades of plastic cranes and gnomes!) The garden was a reflection of the macrocosm and embodied all the yin-yang dualisms projected in manifestation. Mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, were all represented. As Cheng Pan ch’iao said: “The enjoyment of life should come from a view regarding the universe as a garden… so that all beings live according to their nature and great indeed is such happiness.” The importance of water in the Chinese garden was not only due to yin-yang symbolism but to the wide significance of water itself as, next to the Dragon, the greatest Taoist symbol. It is strength in weakness, fluidity, adaptability, coolness of judgment, gentle persuasion, and passionlessness. While mountains and rocks are the bones of the body and the earth its flesh, rivers and streams are the arteries and blood, life-giver and fertilizer. Flowing water and still water symbolized movement and repose and the complementary opposites, and water-worn stones represented the interaction of the soft and the hard. Still water also takes on all the symbolism of the mirror. Water could be made by forming lakes and rivers in the earth excavated for making mountains, though mountains were most frequently represented by rocks, hollow and weather-worn, fretted out by the restless sea or the elements or formed from the strange shapes of petrified trees. These rocks were carefully selected for their color, texture, grain, and shape; some were upright and towering, others, larger at the top than at the base, gave the effect of disappearing into the clouds, others, lying down, took fantastic animal shapes, some gave out a note when struck, others were mute. Sometimes the rocks formed grottoes, but whatever the shape they always appeared as natural to the setting and were as near to the form of wild mountain crags as possible, giving the impression of Nature, untamed and capricious. (In this “naturalness” it must be remarked that the mountains of China in the Yangtze gorges, the far West, and the Southern provinces have been worked by nature herself into fantastic and sometimes grotesque shapes.) “Try to make your mountains resemble real mountains. Follow Nature’s plan” but “do not forget they have to be built by human hands.” Symbolically, the mountain is of course the world axis, but in the Chinese garden it also represented the yang power in Nature with the waters as the yin; the “mountain” is traditionally placed in the middle of a lake or pond, the rock being the stable and eternal, the water the flowing and temporal. This mountain-and-water (shan shui) symbolism also obtains in landscape painting. The rock and the shadow it casts are also yang and yin. Rocks are “silent, unmovable, and detached from life, like refined scholars.” Their ruggedness also suggests the challenging and dangerous element in the mountains and in life. In larger gardens the mountains were sufficiently high for the formation of small valleys and dales, with winging streams opening out into lakes on which boat journeys could be taken and where the water could be spanned by bridges. Sometimes a series of islands or rocks were so connected. Tunnels in the rocks gave the same effect and carried the same symbolism as bridges in passing from one world to another. But “even a little mountain may give rise to many effects… a small stone may evoke many feelings.”[11] Shen Fu says: “In the designing of a rockery or the training of flower trees one should try to show the small in the large and the large in the small and provide for the real in the unreal and the unreal in the real. One reveals and conceals alternately, making it sometimes apparent and sometimes hidden.” Both the yang mountain and the yin tree are axial and so represent stability and balance between the two great powers; they also offer a line of communication for man between the celestial yang forces coming down to earth and the earthly yin forces reaching up to heaven, with man again as central and responsible for the maintenance of balance and harmony in responding equally to the yin and yang powers. Trees were an essential feature of both the domestic and hermitage garden, particularly the latter where they were often the only addition made by man to the natural scenery and their variety was almost as important as the trees themselves. While all trees are beautiful and symbolize the feminine power, some were especially noted for their yin-yang qualities. Though yin as a tree, the pine and cedar express yang masculine dignity and rigidity in contrast to the feminine gracefulness, pliability, and charm of the willow, both these trees were considered necessary to maintain the yin-yang harmony. Flowering trees such as the almond, cherry, plum, and peach were esteemed—one should say loved—for their beauty and their symbolism. The almond, as the first flower of the year, is in many traditions the Awakener, watchfulness. As flowering in winter it is also courage in adversity. The cherry depicts delicacy of feeling and purity of feeling on the yin side and nobility on the yang. The plum, a symbol of winter and beauty signified strength and longevity and the hermit. It is one of the favorite subjects for artists and the plum, pine, and bamboo were called “the three friends of winter.” The almond and plum are both symbolic of new life coming in spring, but the plum should have a gnarled trunk and branches, called sleeping dragons, as the yang to offset the delicate blossoms of the yin; they also represent the old and new together. Just as lovers of the garden would move their beds out under trees, so we read of artists who wandered all night in the moonlight to catch every phase of the beauty of “the dry limbs clad in jade-white blooms.”

The peach holds a special position as the tree of the Taoist genii or Immortals; it is the Tree of Life at the center of Paradise. It is also the Tree of Immortality and one bite of the fruit growing on the tree in Paradise confers immediate immortality. Peach stones were apotropaic and were beautifully and symbolically carved and kept, or worn, as amulets and talismans. The tree is a symbol of spring, youth, marriage, wealth, and longevity.

 

Preeminent among flowers were the lotus, peony, and chrysanthemum. The peony is the only purely yang flower. Flowers, with their cup shape, naturally depict the yin receptive aspect in nature, but the peony is a royal flower, flaunting the red, fiery, masculine color; it is also nobility, glory, riches. The chrysanthemum, on the other hand, is a flower of quiet retirement, the beloved flower of the cultured scholar, the retired official, who was of course also a scholar, the philosopher, and poet. It was so much cultivated in retirement that it became a symbol of that life and of leisure. It signifies longevity as being that which survives the cold and as autumnal it is harvest and wealth, but it is primarily ease, leisure, joviality, and enjoyment. Yüan Chung-lang said that the retired and the scholar were fortunate in having “the enjoyment of the hills and water, flowers and bamboo” largely to themselves since “luckily they lie outside the scope of the strugglers for fame and power who are so busy with their engrossing pursuits that they have no time for such enjoyment.”

But the lotus, a universal symbol in the East (its symbolism is taken on by the lily and sometimes the rose in the West) is “the flower that was in the Beginning, the glorious lily of the Great Waters… that wherein existence comes to be and passes away.” It is both yin and yang and contains within itself the balance of the two powers; it is solar as blooming in the sun and lunar as rising from the dark of the waters of pre-cosmic chaos. As the combination of air and water it symbolizes spirit and matter; its roots bedded in the darkness of the mud depict indissolubility; its stem, the umbilical cord of life, attaches man to his origins and is also a world axis; rising through the opaque waters of the manifest world, the leaves and flowers reach and unfold in the air and sunlight, typifying potentiality in the bud and spiritual expansion and realization in the flower; its seeds, moving on the waters are creation. The lotus is associated with the wheel both as the solar matrix and the sun-wheel of cycles of existence. Iamblichus calls it perfection, since its leaves, flowers, and fruit form the circle. As lunar-solar, yin-yang, the lotus is also the androgyne, the self-existent. It has an inexhaustible symbolism in Hinduism, Taoism, and Buddhism alike. Again it appears as both solar and lunar associated with sun gods such as Surya and lunar goddesses such as Lakshmi; solar with Amitabha and lunar with Kwan-yin and androgynous in Kwannon. The lotus is the Golden Flower of Taoism, the crystallization and experience of light, the Tao. While on the spiritual level it represents the whole of birth, growth, development, and potentiality, on the mundane level it depicts the scholar-gentleman who comes in contact with mud and dirty water but is uncontaminated by it. Apart from its almost endless symbolism, the lotus is a flower of great beauty and highly evocative; as Osvald Sirén says, a sheet of lotus blossom “emanates a peculiar magic, an atmosphere that intoxicates like fragrant incense and lulls like the rhythms of a rising and falling mantra.” Ancient China understood many things which are only now reaching the West and being hailed as new discoveries. She anticipated by centuries the “discovery” that flowers and plants have feelings. Yüan Chung-lang knew that they have their likes and dislikes and compatibilities among other vegetation and that they respond to care and appreciation in more than a material way. The flowers in a Chinese garden were genuinely loved, but not in any “precious” aestheticism, rather in an intimate relationship between living individuals. He said that “flowers have their moods of happiness and sorrow and their time of sleep.… When they seem drunk, or quiet and tired, and when the day is misty, that is the sorrowful mood of flowers.… When they bask in the sunlight and their delicate bodies are protected from the wind, that is the happy mood of flowers.… When the ancient people knew a flower was about to bud they would move their beds and pillows and sleep under it watching how the flower passed from infancy to maturity and finally dropped off and died.… As for all forms of noisy behavior and common vulgar prattle, they are an insult to the spirits of flowers. One should rather sit dumb like a fool than offend them.”[13] Among things which flowers dislike are: too many guests; ugly women putting flowers in their hair; dogs fighting; writing poems by consulting a rhyming dictionary; books kept in bad condition; spurious paintings; and common monks talking Zen! On the other hand they do like a visiting monk who understands tea! Picked flowers and vases of flowers should never be regarded as normal, only as a temporary expedient employed by those living in cities and unnatural places deprived of the hills and lakes or any garden. For the town-dweller or for one kept indoors of necessity the miniature garden was created; though it was also seen in pavilions it was most usually on the tables of scholars. It, too, symbolized Paradise, the Isles of the Blessed, or the Abode of the Immortals reflected in miniature perfection with the whole range of the yin-yang symbolism. Exceptionally beautiful stones or shells were used and there were miniature grottoes, trees, bamboos, and grasses growing among the mountains, valleys, and waters. The making of these gardens was an art in itself; just as Wang Wei maintained that the artist can bring all Nature into the space of a small painting, so the creator of a garden, large, small, or miniature can concentrate the cosmos within its bounds. Enclosing the whole garden in the city, or where the extent of the garden was limited, was the wall which was used not only as a boundary but as a setting for trees, shrubs, and flowers; it could also provide an aperture which opened up some special view. In the city, where space was restricted, walls were often a garden in themselves, sometimes built with considerable width with a roof-garden effect or with trees and shrubs planted on top and flowers and ferns in the crevices below. Enclosing walls also helped to make the city garden a place where one could find “stillness in turmoil.” Apart from the symbolism of the enclosed garden the walls brought in the yin-yang significance of the interplay of light and shade. Today China joins the industrial nations of the world in “exploiting” Nature. Hideous concrete blocks of flats, offices, and factories insulate man from any contact with the yellow earth and, sadly, Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s words can be applied: “There is nearly total disequilibrium between modern man and nature as attested by nearly every expression of modern civilization which seeks to offer a challenge to nature rather than to cooperate with it.… The harmony between man and nature has been destroyed.”

   

And so, about 60km down from the Atlantic coast and set back between the influences of both the Picos and Pyrenees mountain ranges, and around the coy and divided source of the great river Ebro can be found a zone that contains many of Spain's most important man-made ritual sites that have been carved into solid rock. Unlike monolithic cavity sites along the Catalan east of Spain, these cavities appear to have expanded into history and met with a diversity of impacts and assimilations. This somewhat arbitrary 'cluster' can probably fit into an ellipse of around 65km with other found on navigation points either side of the River Ebro for a distance down river of around 150km with the zone of troglodytic loci seeming to cohere to the section of the Ebro that flows under the Atlantic coastline:

 

Top left: San Vicent. Vast amounts of natural light, no recognisable Christian floor plan or credible way to imagine a missing extension. A site that is too far too small for a congregation and one that is associated with Neolithic finds. The Sarcophagi approaching the roof are also not typically Christian, and linking it to Christian architecture post 1950 would seem to be pataphysical at best: perhaps contrastable with Castrillo de la Reina, Cueva San Pedro, Santa Maria de Tejuela or from further afield, the Taureau de Sant Andrea Priu or the domus de janas from Sardinia.

 

The next monolithic sarcophagi are from the site Quintanilla de la Berzosa. The 12th century church of San Martin looks like a modern addition next to the sarcophagi that 'live' on top of mineral outcrops. The site looks down on a modern lake and there may be further elements held within.

 

Just above is an image of a site at Corvio which has no associated religious edifice and aligns to prehistoric traditions.

 

Moving down to a cliff with a modern porch and Justo y Pastor featured in adjacent posts. A sprawling site and here major historical interventions are unable to hide multiple idiosyncrasies - inside and outside - that may not be considered typical of Christian traditions and are in compliance with known prehistoric sites (polished or carved caves, oblong openings and so on).

 

The lower site with a gate covering the opening is San Pelayo and it contains arches in 'arc outrepassé' form. The space is a a vivid cavity reminiscent of the Sardinian domus. The slightly phalic arch has the 'head' of some monolithic sarcophage and may be a correlation to the paléochrétien or as late as the 7th century AD. In keeping with early Christian places of worship the space is relatively dark and simple.

 

There are four more sites pictured above the central image and the top left of these is El Cuevatón - once a dynamic and vivid site on several levels and demolished or quarried into an intriguing vast residual abris.

 

Below is San Martin (featured in prior posts) which is unlike early Christian places of worship: open to full light and is without a recognisable Christian floor plan. It is a good example of a site with minimal late intervention and has recently recovered from being an agricultural building asset.

 

Blow this, and second from the right, is Santa Maria de Valverde, converted into a Christian place of worship and with a dense patina of monolithic graves on the monolithic roof over the heads of worshippers. Sarcophagi above the heads of worshipers is not a traditional Christian procedure.

 

The last site to the right is Arroyuelos - a 2 story site converted into a Christian place of worship despite having no recognisable or convincing floorplan in relation to expected architectural themes. An alcove of monolithic sarcophagi link it to styles of monolithic necropols.

 

The central photo is of a natural formation in hills between the great river basins. Three hills are extremely vivid and apt for ancestral interpretation. One has three standing stones on its summit, another a Celtic fort and the last (Las Tuerces y el Cañón de la Horadada) is crammed with vivid natural detail and a perfect loci for progenitor myths of the Ebro and more. The Celtic hill fort at Bernorio is encircled by five sites, 'Las Tuerces y el Cañón de la Horadada' is surrounded by three sites and others look over rivers or valleys now flooded for hydroelectric futures.

 

The directions of flow of rivers featured in the above graphic may have been effected by hydroelectric activity in the region. I also work to the idea that today's finickity idea of 'the source of the Ebro' does not align to prehistoric assessments. Despite this an expanded row of menhirs clearly point towards the currently recognise source. Two of these are currently in use as clapper bridges.

 

I will argue that these are sites that can bridge history and prehistory and that evidence from different ages will be scattered unevenly between sites - for example San Pantaleón is currently agreed as having prehistoric roots with Argés Hermitage appearing to be of exclusive historical origin.

 

Other important sites to the east and outside of this cluster map include Eremitorio de San Pedro and Ojo Guareña.

 

AJM 24.09.20

Jardin du Luxembourg 19/04/2025 08h49

In this park or garden there are more than 106 statues. This statue is a bit hidden on the side of the Rue Guynemer. It is a tribute to Édouard Branly, a French physicist and inventor known for his early involvement in wireless telegraphy and his invention of the coherer in 1890 (born in 1844 and died in 1940).

This sculpture is made by Carlo Sarrabezolles (Toulouse 1888, Paris 1971).

 

Jardin du Luxembourg

The Jardin du Luxembourg is the second largest public park in Paris (224,500 m² / 22.5 hectares) located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France. The park is the garden of the French Sénat (Senate), which is itself housed in the Palais du Luxembourg.

[ Wikipedia - Jardin du Luxembourg ]

Unnecessary complexity, chaos, financial woe and a gradual erosion are all symptoms of a sick NHS in the UK. However, most of us who reside in the UK already know this, so I opted for a more subtle conceptual approach that can be compared to a mechanism of infinite complexity, that cannot do the job that it was originally created to do.

 

I also attempted to address abitrariness and the intrinsic nature of the NHS to British culture/society, both conceptually and actually. I won't expand on these ideas any further in written form, because the perception of the viewer is intrinsic to the arts, particularly to abstract art.

 

The idea of inserting text into the already complex visual forms, was to attempt to render the text partially unreadable and to partially cohere text with the visual forms. Some words retain an identity seperate from the visual forms and "shout out" phrases, some that appear to be abitrary and others, such as "Whistleblow" "Car Crash" "Corporate" and "illegal" that have a direct relevence to the overriding concept of the work.

 

Simon

The site has been in continual use into recent memory albeit as a very simple shepherd's base. I have isolate a monolithic structure from the cluster that coheres with another site that has 'neolithic' petroglyphs - discussing them both as 'warm water forms'. If the two are of a similar or adjacent chronology then other monolithic elements on the sites may be looked at for evidence of neolithic activity as early elements in a continuum through into history. The site's entrance is also marked by a stone described as a standing stone and dolmens are not far away. Neolithic pots can include ridges with holes to attach cords or threads to keep the pot above the ground - a strategy that might have been pleasant and adapted against vermin with a possible secondary use for reverberation in music. The very specific style of hole cut by man into this monolith often seem to have evidence on their far ends of force from two poles, and whilst they may have been used by woodland craftsmen to help bend sticks into forms, they may also have housed the necessary wooden poles for hanging adapted pots. I have never seen an example of this. A last explanation here is that the holes were for pagan or otherwise votive offerings. The repetition of form, angles and slight funnel seems perfect for wooden poles for early ceramics, and the lack of marks from downward bends (were it to be for woodcraft) and traces of pole-end mark (clearly visible in the starting image) gave me the confidence to make this simple clip where the viewer simply needs to add wood and string if they see the need.

 

I've seen representations of hanging pots in museums and books and they may have continued in some parts with one appearing in the background during Feyder's 1935 film 'La Kermesse héroïque' which describes events and characters of 1616.

 

Prior to assembling this simple film, I tried to add wooden posts, string and pots for a montage. This was too complicated to work with my inputs, with many, many lines of perspective. One thing I did find was that the string may have been far shorter and closet to the 'dowsing wood', letting pots stack the space with greater efficiency and allowing them to pour with ease and without stress on single strings: in effect fans of string to rings that then pivot on the point of contact with the wood and little or no swing.

 

I've looked at the projected habitat of the Bouquetin des Alpes around the neolithic and they were in the Pyrenees just to the south. Spilling from time to time into the Monts de Lacaune region or the Sidobre would not shock me, and neither would the idea that people from the Haut-Languedoc passed up to the Pyrénées to hunt in the summer. I say this as the same holes might also provide root foundation for prized horns and that a wall of Bouquetin horns presented at the correct angle might also be another possible support for hanging pots.

 

AJM 30.06.20

 

(There is a typo in the end: 'dowsing stcks' instead of 'sticks' and a 'circa' too much! I can't replace a video on Flickr in the same way as a photo can be adjusted retrospectively, and as the error is a typo, I'm just going to keep it).

A diorama that's sort of failed to really cohere: Spidey facing down the Sinister Six while lots of other stuff goes on in the background. I'll probably photograph the minifgures at some point, since they came out best of all.

A flashback, or involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has a sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of a past experience. These experiences can be happy, sad, exciting, or any other emotion one can consider. The term is used particularly when the memory is recalled involuntarily, and/or when it is so intense that the person "relives" the experience, unable to fully recognize it as memory and not something that is happening in "real time" Flashbacks are the "personal experiences that pop into your awareness, without any conscious, premeditated attempt to search and retrieve this memory". These experiences occasionally have little to no relation to the situation at hand. Flashbacks to those suffering posttraumatic stress disorder can seriously disrupt everyday life.What is a flashback? A Viet Nam veteran with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was driving on the New Jersey Turnpike near Newark Airport when a helicopter flew directly overhead. Suddenly, he slammed on the brakes, pulled his car to the side of the road, jumped out, and threw himself into a ditch. The unexpected sound of the helicopter had taken him back to Viet Nam and a time of being psychologically overwhelmed by incoming enemy fire. The flashback was intense. His experience was not of remembering an event, but of living the event. In an explicit flashback. the person is involuntarily transported back in time. To the person, it does not seem so. What they experience is being experienced as if it were happening in the present. An explicit flashback involves feelings and facts. Flashbacks from early childhood are different. They do not include factual information. Until about five years of age, factual - or explicit - memory is immature. But implicit memory, the memory of an emotional state, may go back to birth. When the memory of a strong emotional state is activated, the person is exposed to an involuntarily replay of what was felt at perhaps age one or two. Since facts are not replayed, the emotions seem to belong to what is going on in the present. Implicit flashbacks from early childhood can be powerful. They can overtake a person, and dominate his or her emotional state. Even so, the person may have no idea that what they are feeling is memory. How could they? If they cannot remember a past event that caused these feelings, the feelings naturally seem to belong to the present. When we have an implicit flashback, we mistakenly believe someone, or something, in the present is causing these feelings. Though something in the present triggered the feelings, the feelings do not fit the present situation. They are far more intense and far more persistent. Those two characteristics - intensity and persistence - are the clues we need to look for, clues that can tell us we are experiencing a flashback. Research at the University at Albany and the University of California Los Angeles has confirmed what therapists have long suspected, that PTSD can be caused by early childhood trauma in which emotions flashback but memory does not. In this research, very young rodents were exposed to one session of traumatic stress. Later, the animals were tested for both memory of the event and for fear response. Because the trauma took place early in their life, the rodents did not remember the environment in which the trauma took place. Yet, the rodents showed clear signs of PTSD: a persistent increase in anxiety when exposed to new situations, and drastic changes in levels of stress hormones. This research indicates that a trauma can cause a stress response even when no memory of the experience is present. It also suggests that therapists need to recognize that stress can be caused by unconscious processes - not just by thoughts. Commenting on the research, Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry, said "There may be a mismatch between what people think and how they feel." Where does early trauma come from? Violence and abuse are obvious causes. But seemingly benign practices may also cause trauma. Neurological researcher Allan Schore says the practice of putting a young child in bed, closing the door, and letting them "cry it out" is severely traumatizing. Parents, and so-called experts, have claimed that since the child will not remember this being done, it will have no impact. Schore says research shows that though a child may appear to be peacefully asleep after "crying it out," the child may not be asleep at all, but rather is in a frozen state of "dissociated terror." An article on "crying it out" can be found at this Psychology Today link. Schore writes "the infant's psychobiological response to trauma is comprised of two separate response patterns, hyperarousal and dissociation." Initially, the infant responds with increased heart rate, blood pressure and respiration. The infant's distress is expressed in crying, and then screaming. "A second later-forming, longer-lasting traumatic reaction is seen in dissociation. . . . If early trauma is experienced as 'psychic catastrophe' dissociation represents . . . 'escape where there is no escape'. Certainly no mother wants to intentionally traumatize a child. Helpful information on how to calm a crying baby and get some sleep is ovvered by Sarah Ockwell-Smith

 

Clients I have worked with to alleviate fear of flying expressed concern about having overwhelming, unbearable feelings on a flight and being unable to escape. They are unable to specify a time when they had such feelings. Yet, such feelings are too much of a threat for them to fly. Taking a flight is an emotional risk. They fear they may have an overwhelming experience, and unable to leave the plane, have no way to escape the experience. Whether they understand it or not, they fear they will have an implicit flashback. Since escape is seen as the answer to emotional overwhelm, escape from the original traumatic experience must have not been impossible.

What can a person do about implicit flashbacks? Three things: 1. Recognize that when an emotion is too intense and too persistent to fit the current situation, you may be experiencing the flashback of an experience from early childhood. 2. Face-to-face with an attuned and empathic therapist, put the emotions into words. Doing so links the therapist's presence to the emotions in the flashback, and neutralizes them; 3. Tell the therapist in detail what triggered the flashback; by linking the therapist's presence to the triggers, the triggers are neutralized. Memory is divided into voluntary (conscious) and involuntary (unconscious) processes that function independently of each other. Theories and research on memory dates back to Hermann Ebbinghaus, who began studying nonsense syllables.[1] Ebbinghaus classified three distinct classes of memory: sensory, short term, and long-term memory. Sensory memory is made up of a brief storage of information within a specific medium (the line you see after waving a sparkler in your field of vision is created by sensory memory). Short term memory is made up of the information currently in use to complete the task at hand. Long term memory is composed of the systems used to store memory over long periods. It enables one to remember what happened two days ago at noon, or who called last night.

 

Miller (1962–1974) declared that studying such fragile things as involuntary memories should not be done. This appears to have been followed since very little research has been done on flashbacks in the cognitive psychology discipline. Flashbacks have been studied within a clinical discipline however, and they have been identified as symptoms for many disorders, including post traumatic stress disorder.Flashbacks are psychological phenomena during which a person relives a past event or fragments of a past experience. They generally occur involuntarily, abruptly entering an individual’s awareness without the aid of premeditation or conscious attempts to recall the memory, and they may be intense. As flashbacks involve past events, they may have no relevance to what is happening at present.

While people often associate flashbacks solely with visual information, other senses such as smell, taste, touch, and hearing may also be actively involved in the episode. Flashbacks can elicit a wide array of emotions. Some flashbacks are so intense, it may become difficult to distinguish memory from current life events. Conversely, some flashbacks may be devoid of visual and auditory memory and may lead a person to experience feelings of panic, helplessness, numbness, or entrapment. Many individuals report the onset of flashbacks after surviving a near-death experience or another traumatic situation. Those with posttraumatic stress may experience flashbacks as a recurring symptom of the condition. Posttraumatic stress may develop after exposure to military combat, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, or potentially fatal events such as a car crash.

 

In addition to PTSD, other mental health conditions such as depression, acute stress, and obsessions and compulsions are associated with the development of flashbacks. The use of some drugs—such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)—may also increase the likelihood of a flashback occurring.

Flashbacks may have a profound impact on a person’s mental health. Due to the emotionally charged and uncontrollable nature of flashbacks, affected individuals may find their ability to carry out everyday activities is diminished. Loss of function may lead to a decrease in quality of life, which in turn may be a contributing factor for mood issues such as anxiety and depression. The psychological distress caused by flashbacks may be more immediate. Feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, confusion, and disorientation may often follow a flashback. An individual may become caught up in the flashback and scream, cry, show fear, or exhibit other behaviors that might lead to shame and embarrassment after the episode. These behaviors may damage self-esteem and create tension in interpersonal relationships. While the exact causes of flashbacks have not yet been identified, neuroscience and neuroimaging investigations have revealed information about how they occur. Neural scans of individuals experiencing flashbacks show that specific brain areas, such as the mid-occipital lobe, primary motor cortex, supplementary motor area, and regions of the dorsal stream, are highly activated during the episode. Current research also suggests that factors such as stress, food deprivation, and temporal lobe seizures may play an important role in the onset of flashbacks. Some people may isolate themselves emotionally in order to survive the aftermath of a highly traumatic events. However these survivors may find that the previously isolated thoughts, emotions, and body sensations are still expressed in the present—sometimes many years after the conclusion of the crisis. At times, it may even seem as if intrusive memories and sensations come from nowhere.

By working with a qualified therapist, many people develop an increased ability to cope effectively with flashbacks. In addition to providing further education on flashbacks, a therapist can help a person in treatment gradually unearth and address the source of the trauma—ensuring that previously repressed thoughts, emotions, sensations, and actions are expressed in a safe, healthy environment.

 

Due to the elusive nature of involuntary recurrent memories, very little is known about the subjective experience of flashbacks. However, theorists agree that this phenomenon is in part due to the manner in which memories of specific events are initially encoded (or entered) into memory, the way in which the memory is organized, and also the way in which the individual later recalls the event. Overall, theories that attempt to explain the flashback phenomenon can be categorized into one of two viewpoints. The special mechanism view is clinically oriented in that it holds that involuntary memories are due to traumatic events, and the memories for these events can be attributed to a special memory mechanism. On the other hand, the basic mechanism view is more experimentally oriented in that it is based on memory research. This view holds that traumatic memories are bound by the same parameters as all other every-day memories. Both viewpoints agree that involuntary recurrent memories result from rare events that would not normally occur. These rare events elicit strong emotional reactions from the individual since it violates normal expectations. According to the special mechanisms view, the event would lead to fragmented voluntary encoding into memory (meaning that only certain isolated parts of the event would be encoded), thus making the conscious subsequent retrieval of the memory much more difficult. On the other hand, involuntary recurrent memories are likely to become more available, and these are more likely to be triggered by external cues. In contrast to this, the basic mechanism view holds that the traumatic event would lead to enhanced and cohesive encoding of the event in memory, and this would make both voluntary and involuntary memories more available for subsequent recall. What is currently an issue of controversy is the nature of the defining criteria that makes up an involuntary memory. Up until recently, researchers believed that involuntary memories were a result of traumatic incidents that the individual experienced at a specific time and place, but the temporal and spatial features of the event are lost during an involuntary recollection episode. In other words, people who suffer from flashbacks lose all sense of time and place, and they feel as if they are re-experiencing the event instead of just recalling a memory. This is consistent with the special mechanism viewpoint in that the involuntary (unintended) memory is based on a different memory mechanism than its voluntary (intended) counterpart. Furthermore, the initial emotions experienced at the time of encoding are also re-experienced during a flashback episode, and this can be especially distressing when the memory is of a traumatic event. It has also been demonstrated that the nature of the flashbacks experienced by an individual are static in that they retain an identical form upon each intrusion.[9] This occurs even when the individual has learned new information that directly contradicts the information retained in the intrusive memory.

 

Upon further investigation, it was found that involuntary memories are usually derived from either stimuli (i.e. anything that causes a change in behaviour) that indicated the onset of a traumatic event, or from stimuli that hold intense emotional significance to the individual simply because these stimuli were closely associated with the trauma in terms of timing. These stimuli then become warning signals that if encountered again, serve to trigger a flashback. This has been termed the warning signal hypothesis. For example, a man experiences a flashback upon seeing sun spots on his lawn. This happens because he associates the sun spots with the headlights of the vehicle that he collided with, causing a horrific car accident. According to Ehlers and Clark, traumatic memories are more apt to induce flashbacks simply because of faulty encoding in that the individual fails to take contextual information into account, as well as time and place information that would usually be associated with every-day memories. These individuals become more sensitized to stimuli that they associate with the traumatic event which then serve as triggers for a flashback (even though the context surrounding the stimulus may be unrelated; such as sun spots being unrelated to headlights). These triggers may have elicited an adaptive response during the time of the traumatic experience, but they soon become maladaptive if the person continues to respond in the same way in situations in which no danger may be present.

 

The special mechanism viewpoint would add to this further by suggesting that these triggers activate the fragmented memory of the trauma, but protective cognitive mechanisms function to inhibit the recall of the original memory of the traumatic event. Dual representation theory enhances this idea by suggesting two separate mechanisms that account for voluntary and involuntary memories; the first of which is called the verbally accessible memory system and the latter is referred to the situationally accessible memory system.

In contrast to this, theories belonging to the basic mechanism viewpoint hold that there are no separate mechanisms that account for voluntary and involuntary memories. The recall of memories for stressful events do not differ under involuntary and voluntary recall. Instead, it is the retrieval mechanism that is different for each type of recall. In involuntary recall, the external trigger creates an uncontrolled spreading of activation in memory, whereas in voluntary recall, this activation is strictly controlled and is goal-oriented.

 

The hippocampus is highlighted in red.

Several brain regions have been implicated in the neurological basis of flashbacks. The medial temporal lobes, the precuneus, the posterior cingulate gyrus and the prefrontal cortex are the most typically referenced with regards to involuntary memories. The medial temporal lobes are commonly associated with memory. More specifically, the lobes have been linked to episodic/declarative memory and thus damage to these areas of the brain result in disruptions to declarative memory system. The hippocampus, located within the medial temporal regions, has also been highly related to memory processes. There are numerous functions in the hippocampus; these functions also include aspects of memory consolidation.Brain imaging studies have shown flashbacks activate areas associated with memory retrieval. The precuneus, located in the superior parietal lobe and the posterior cingulate gyrus have also been implicated in memory retrieval. In addition, studies have shown activity in areas of the prefrontal cortex to be involved in memory retrieval. Thus, the medial temporal lobe, precuneus, superior parietal lobe and posterior cingulate gyrus have all been implicated in flashbacks in accordance to their roles on memory retrieval. Memory has typically been divided into sensory, short term, and long term processes.According to Rasmuseen & Berntsen, 2009, "long-term memory processes may form the core of spontaneous thought".Thus the memory process most related to flashbacks is long term memory. As well, studies by Rasmuseen & Berntsen, 2009, have shown that long term memory is also susceptible to extraneous factors such as recency effect, arousal and rehearsal as it pertains to accessibility. Compared to voluntary memories, involuntary memories show shorter retrieval times and little cognitive effort. Finally, involuntary memories arise due to automatic processing, which does not rely on higher-order cognitive monitoring, or executive control processing. Voluntary memory is normally associated with contextual information, which is what allows for correspondence between time and place, this is not true of flashbacks. According to Brewin, Lanius et, al, 2009, flashbacks, are disconnected from contextual information, and as a result are disconnected from time and place. To date, the specific causes of flashbacks have not yet been confirmed. Several studies have proposed various potential factors. Gunasekaran et al., 2009, indicate there may be a link between food deprivation and stress on the occurrence of flashbacks. Neurologists suggest temporal lobe seizures may also have some relation. On the reverse side, several ideas have been discounted in terms of their causing flashbacks. Tym et al., 2009, suggest this list includes medication or other substances, Charles Bonnet syndrome, delayed palinopsia, hallucinations, dissociative phenomena, and depersonalization syndrome. A study of the persistence of traumatic memories in World War II prisoners of war investigates through the administration of surveys the extent and severity of flashbacks that occur in prisoners of war. This study concluded that the persistence of severely traumatic autobiographical memories can last upwards of 65 years. Until recently, the study of flashbacks has been limited to participants who already experience flashbacks, such as those suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, restricting researchers to observational/exploratory rather than experimental studies. Neuroimaging techniques have been applied to the investigation of flashbacks. Using these techniques, researchers attempt to discover the structural and functional differences in the anatomy of the brain in individuals who suffer from flashbacks compared to those who do not. Neuroimaging involves a cluster of techniques, including computerized tomography, positron emission tomography, magnetic resonance imaging (including functional), as well as magnetoencephalography. Neuroimaging studies investigating flashbacks are based on current psychological theories that are used as the foundation for the research, and one such theory that is consistently investigated is the difference between explicit and implicit memory. This distinction dictates the manner in which memories are later recalled, namely either consciously (voluntarily) or unconsciously (involuntarily). These methods have largely relied on subtractive reasoning in which the participant voluntarily recalls a memory and then the memory is again recalled, but this time through involuntary means. Involuntary memories (or flashbacks) are elicited in the participant by reading an emotionally charged script to them that is designed to trigger a flashback in individuals who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. The investigators record the regions of the brain that are active during each of these conditions, and then subtract the activity. Whatever is left is assumed to underpin the neurological differences between the conditions. Imaging studies looking at patients with post-traumatic stress disorder as they undergo flashback experiences have identified elevated activation in regions of the dorsal stream including the mid-occipital lobe, primary motor cortex and supplementary motor area. The dorsal stream is involved in sensory processing and therefore these activations might underlie the vivid visual experiences associated with flashbacks. The study also found reduced activation in regions such as the inferior temporal cortex and parahippocampus which are involved in processing allocentric relations. These deactivations might contribute to feelings of dissociation from reality during flashback experiences. Flashbacks are often associated with mental illness as they are a symptom and a feature in diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), acute stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Flashbacks have also been observed in people suffering from manic depression, depression, homesickness, near-death experiences, epileptic seizures, and drug abuse.[19] Some researchers have suggested that the use of some drugs can cause a person to experience flashbacks;users of lysergic acid diethylamide sometimes report "acid flashbacks". While other studies show that the use of drugs, specifically cannabis, can help reduce the occurrence of flashbacks in people with PTSD.

 

The psychological phenomenon has frequently been portrayed in film and television. Some of the most accurate media portrayals of flashbacks have been those related to wartime, and the association of flashbacks to post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the traumas and stresses of war. One of the earliest screen portrayals of this is in the 1945 film Mildred Pierce. A flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point in the story. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story's primary sequence of events to fill in crucial backstory. In the opposite direction, a flashforward (or prolepsis) reveals events that will occur in the future. Both flashback and flashforward are used to cohere a story, develop a character, or add structure to the narrative. In literature, internal analepsis is a flashback to an earlier point in the narrative; external analepsis is a flashback to a time before the narrative started. In movies and television, several camera techniques and special effects have evolved to alert the viewer that the action shown is a flashback or flashforward; for example, the edges of the picture may be deliberately blurred, photography may be jarring or choppy, or unusual coloration or sepia tone, or monochrome when most of the story is in full color, may be used.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashback_(narrative)

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashback_(psychology)

Alex Katz, American born 1927

 

Detail from: John’s Loft , 1969

 

Oil on aluminum

 

Forgoing all sense of unity, harmony, and resolution, John’s Loft is a riot of incongruous scales and perspectives. Nothing coheres—neither the figures, some of them significantly cropped, nor the panels on which they have been rendered. Illogically, the left side of the figure’s face at the far right has been relocated far to the left. The multiplication of sitters and points of view suggests not only a mobile viewer, someone browsing the same party as the painted figures, catching glimpses behind, across, and in between other guests, but the passage of time as well. In this respect, Katz’s painting performs like a film or a series of photographs, capturing snapshots of otherwise fleeting moments. John’s Loft has been stripped of all contextual detail, including the location referred to in the title: the home of artist John Button.

 

Gift of Alex Katz, 2015 ( 2015.494.2a-g)

From the Placard: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

www.metmuseum.org/

 

Identify the Artist XI will begin tomorrow. Sunday, February 11, 2018 and as usual run 10 weeks to the middle of April. Calendrical links are provided below. Come join the party.

 

Identify the Artist XI

 

Week 1 LENT (951 – 955) 2/11 – 2/15/2018

 

Week 2 MIRROR ( 956 – 960) 2/18 - 2/22/2018

 

Week 3 A ROOM WITH A VIEW ( 961 – 965) 2/25 – 3/1/2018

 

Week 4 LIPS (966 – 970 ) 3/4- 3/8/2018

 

Week 5 VENICE (971 -975) 3/11 – 3/15/2018

 

Week 6 Psychedelic Furs Greatest Hits Love My Way (976 -980) 3/19 – 3/22/2018

 

Week 7 DINING ROOM ( 981 – 985) 3/25 - 3/29/2018

 

Week 8 EASTER ( 986 – 990) 4/1/-4/5/2018

 

Week 9 INSIDE CHURCH ( 991-995) 4/8 – 4/12/2018

 

Week 10 PORTRAITS ( 996 – 1000) 4/15 – 4/19/2018

 

The 1st and 2nd place prizes will be a copy of the book: Photography at MoMA: 1960 to Now .

store.moma.org/books/moma-publications/photography-at-mom...

 

In addition to First and Second place prizes, there will be a mailed Art postcard (my choice) acknowledging their participation. Third through Fifth place will also receive an Art postcard.

 

The Rules of the Game:

 

Posting of a detail fragment of a work of art will take place sometime after 8:00 PM EST, five days a week (Sunday; Monday; Tuesday; Wednesday; Thursday. There are no IDs on Friday or Saturday)

Correct answers are allotted points in the following manner:

First correct respondent receives 6 points

Second: 5 points

third: 4 points

fourth: 3 points

fifth: 2 points

Each respondent after that receives 1 point, whether the artist named is correct or not.. 2 points will be awarded if there were not 5 awards.

Incorrect responses will be awarded at least one point (there is no penalty for guessing...actually encouraged). The opportunity to accrue points can only happen within a maximum of 24 hours. Once the full photograph of the work of Art is elevated and the artist identified, no additional scoring (for that work can occur). (In other words, regardless of pleas, points will not be awarded for a comment/ID made days after the posting) ( Also, 15 guesses does not generate 15 points...only 1 point )

A favorite of the photograph will also garnish 1 point ( only if nothing else is ventured by the participant,…1 point is not added to any other points awarded ).

A summary of scores for the top five positions will be published each Sunday, at the beginning of each set of five photographs.

Caveats / Understanding:

Postings may be held up due to circumstances beyond my control.

Delays in posting may occur each evening. ( sorry, no guarantee on 8:00 EST, I’m a working stiff in the finance industry and there are late nights at times. – usually month end btw ).

In addition, as most of you are aware, part of the clues for each identity is a “presence/absence” notation about whether the artist has been in a prior Identity Set. Because flickr’s new format doesn’t facilitate the reading of a long list of names in a “Set’s” overview/description, those lists are also available on request. If you send me an email address that can receive attachments, I will transmit an Windows based Excel sheet with the names of the artists and the number of their paintings/objects. ( Be sure to specify which format you would like: xlsx; xls; csv; txt – tab delimited – if you don’t specify the default is xlsx MS Office-10). ( non-windows participants should request txt).

Also, sorry for the bias the timing provides those in the Americas but no matter how I thought about it… I couldn’t come up with a plan to assist Europe and Asia.

She wears the "Mpooro Engorio" or wedding necklace. Made with Doum fibers bound together with cohered cloth strips. A highly prized necklace given at the time of marriage.

 

Pushed away by their neighbours, Rendille henceforth inhabit a vast territory in one of Kenya's most arid regions: the Kaisut Desert. It is located between Lake Turkana and the Chalbi Desert.

They are semi-nomadic, both nomad and pastoralist. Clans live in temporary settlement called gobs. Gobs are usually near wells dug and are given the name of the clan, subclan or the elder of the family. They never stay long at the same place to look for water sources and pasturing areas. They have to move 3 to 5 times a year. Villages are typically made of two dozen houses with about 120 individuals. They are composed of a group of semi-spherical huts made of branches and covered with leather or canvas. Women are in charge of taking the houses apart and putting them back in the new location. Near them, an enclosure of crabbed branches protects camels for the night. Each kind of livestock (camels, sheep, goats, cattle) have a separate camp that is taken cared of by people of a different age-set. Unlike other pastoral tribes, the Rendille favour camels rather than cattle, because they are better suited to the environment. They depend heavily on these animals for many of their daily needs: food, milk, clothing, trade and transport. They are skilled craftsmen and make many different decoration or ornaments. Rendile warriors often wear proudly a distinctive visor-like hairstyle, dyed with red ochre. As for the women, they wear several kilos beads. The Rendille receive empooro engorio beaded collars for marriage, made of palm fibers, girafe or elephant hairs. Like the Maasai with cows, camels are bled in order to drink their blood. They are closely aligned with the Samburu, by economic and kinship's ties. They have often adopted their language. Marriage is not allowed within one's own clan, and is arranged by parents as for most tribes. Each wife live in her own home with her children, and mothers have a high status. Society is strongly bound by family ties.

They still believe in their God, called Wak or Ngai. They also have fortune-tellers who predict the future, and perform sacrifices for rain. Special ceremonies take place at a child's birth. A ewe goat is sacrificed if it is a girl, a ram if a boy. The girl is blessed 3 times while 4 for the boy. In the same way, mother drinks blood for 3 days for a babygirl, 4 days for a babyboy. The weeding ceremony takes time. The prospective groom must give the bridewealth (gunu) to the bride's family: 4 female and 4 male camels (half for the father, the remaining camels for the rest of the family). One of them is eaten at the ceremony. The bride wears jewellery made of glass and metal, necklaces of beads and wire, headbands, and a large circular earings. She will join her husband's family after marriage. The elders discuss problems in a ritual circle called Nabo, in which women are allowed to enter. They also meet there to pray, receive guests and perform ceremonies.

 

© Eric Lafforgue

www.ericlafforgue.com

 

The city of Virellia rises like a hymn to gravity and grace. It is a dense, gleaming metropolis of towering spires engineered not just for function, but for awe—vertical ridges, buttresses, and domes echoing both cathedral and starship design. Soft clouds drift between the towers, partially veiling the lower city like a veil of mystery. Bridges and avenues connect the structures, suggesting a civilization that values both grandeur and cohesion. And above it all, those five massive moons hang like sentinels—close enough to feel their gravity tug at one’s imagination.

 

It’s the kind of image that doesn’t just depict a place—it invites us to invent its stories. Who lives here? What kind of culture builds cities that look like launch-ready vessels? What kind of physics allows such proximity between worlds?

 

Virellia’s towers are not merely buildings—they are memory spires, each one encoded with the lived experiences of its inhabitants. The tallest, known as the Kirell Spire, is both a monument and a living archive, its surface shimmering with the thoughts of those who have walked its halls.

 

The Virellians are not a single species, but a “concord of four,” each evolved on one of the moons that orbit their shared planet. Long ago, they discovered a way to bridge the gravitational divide using a technology called Luneth Threads—quantum filaments that allow instantaneous travel between the moons and the planet. Virellia was built at the convergence point of these threads, a city where four cultures collide and cohere.

 

•The Aelari (from the moon Thaleth): Ethereal beings of light and sound, they communicate through harmonic resonance. Their architecture is fluid, often appearing to ripple like water.

•The Dromari (from Kessun): Heavily armored and stoic, they value permanence and legacy. Their contributions to the city are the deep foundations and subterranean vaults.

•The Vennari (from Solun): Amphibious and poetic, they craft the bridges and cloud gardens, infusing them with bioluminescent flora.

•The Kirellans (from Lumen): Bipedal and empathic, they are the mediators and archivists, responsible for the memory spires and cultural synthesis.

 

Virellia is governed not by law, but by resonance councils—assemblies where representatives from each species share emotional impressions rather than arguments. Decisions are made when a shared resonance is achieved, a kind of empathic harmony that signals consensus. But harmony is not always easy. A recent tension has emerged: the Aelari have begun to vanish from the city, their harmonic signatures fading from the spires. Some say they are retreating to Thaleth, disillusioned by the increasing materialism of the Kirellans. Others whisper of a fifth species, long exiled, whose return could destabilize the Luneth Threads.

 

That fifth celestial body hanging in the sky, slightly apart from the others, is no moon. It’s Velis. Velis is not a natural satellite. It’s an ancient construct—a hollow world, engineered millennia ago by the Velari, a fifth species once banished for manipulating emotional resonance to control others. Unlike the moons, which orbit in predictable harmony, Velis drifts with a subtle defiance, its path governed by internal gravitic engines and a consciousness that never fully sleeps.

 

Mira, a young Kirellan archivist, is tasked with maintaining the emotional integrity of the Kirell Spire. She must decide: awaken the Velari and risk cultural upheaval, or seal the vault and preserve the fragile harmony of Virellia. But the spire begins to echo with Velari memories, and the city itself seems to lean toward awakening.

 

It has puzzled me for a long time why so many Japanese superheroes (Ultraman, Kamen Riders, Voltron or Golion, Go-Onger, Gao-ranger, you name ‘em) have bug-eyes, unmoving mouths, or no mouth at all and have a strong connection with mime.

 

I now have a theory about the connection between Japanese superheroes and mime.

 

Japanese superheroes make many gestures (see image above), like mime artists. And more, in a sense they also speak. But their mouths are always immovable. Often they do not have mouths at all. And yet they do speak: They mime speech!

 

Typicaly, a group of young males and one female strike poses, press buttons, or contact someone in heaven on a magical mobile phone, and change ("hensin") into a team of superheroes wearing colour coded wetsuits. Why should then even need to change into a super hero suit? There is no secret made of their identity.

 

They then do stylised battle, reminiscent of badly choreographed pro-wrestling, with one or more wetsuited monsters, often with a conspicuously mobile jaw, in a car park.

 

As the superheroes fight they 'speak', or shout, encouraging each other. But where does their speech come from? Their mouths can not move, nor even open. They mime speech. They take out their magic mobile phones and put them to their motionless mouths. All eyes are focused toward the miming speaker.

 

In the mimicry of speech they are much like masked performers in the Noh Play. The body language of the players mimes speech to perfection, but the face does not move at all.

 

Nowhere is the mime aspect of Japanese superheroism more apparent than in the shows performed for children at Japanese festivals. Performers in bug-eye, multi-coloured mouthless wetsuits come on stage. Someone presses a button on a ghetto blaster, and off they go, miming their way through an ultra-man epic, never once saying a word, but all the while making it plain who is speaking.

 

The Japanese boys love it. They imitate the gestures, like the Ultraman laser beam pose above.

 

So why is miming speech so important?

 

According to Lacan the human self exists by virtue of two incomplete feedback loops: those provided by voice (or phonetic language) and vision.

 

We can look at ourselves in the mirror, but we can never see the minds eye. We can speak ourselves, but Lacan argues, the enunciated "I am" of my self speech, never quite coheres with the self that would be saying it.

 

However, with two ways back, two feedback paths, to the self, we play a shell game, or two card monte, always satisfied that when the word does not hit the mark, we can see ourselves in a mirror. And when the mirror seems empty, we can call ourselves by name.

 

The problem remains however, in convincing ourselves that our speech comes from the same place as our mouth. But we get used to it. Get used to thinking that sound and vision come from the same place. E.g. The people that we watch on television appear to be speaking the sounds, even though we know, if we think about it, that the sound is coming from the speakers at the side of the box.

 

Sound and vision never come from the same place, but we get used to thinking that they do, and the scumble that links the two together, that overcomes the contradiction of a picture that is attached to words, is paramount in the production of self.

 

Japanese boys watch their superheroes mime speech. They know that on the one hand their heroes are not speaking. All the people at the show, everyone knows that Ultraman is dumb, that emperor has no clothes. But the little boys also know that everyone loves the superheroes and assumes that the superheroes are speaking. They learn that if they take up the mime too, then no one will 'out them', no one will ever say "Hey, you are only miming." Superheroes and humans mime speech. It is important that they do so, and get away with it.

 

But why the bug eyes? For me, the bug-eyes of Japanese superheroes are seen but unseeing eyes. Their eyes are massive. Sometimes the Japanese superheroes face is all eye (Kamen rider Faizu/555). But they have no pupils, no in-eye movement to suggest that they see. Their massive eyes emphasise their visuality, but with their lack of inner eye detail, it is though they can not see at all. These eyes are, I suggest, the eyes that stare at us from out of the mirror. Our eyes as reflected mirrors fascinate us, they draw our gaze, we attempt even to look into them, but we know that they are sightless.

 

As I have argued elsewhere, the Japanese are permanently in "the mirror stage" in that, by virtue of their training in and ability to take multiple visual perspectives upon themselves, they continue to identify with self as reflected. Growing up in an world of uninterrupted and loving gazes, mirror identification presents little problem for the Japanese. But in order to develope a self they must also integrate the voice, attach those vocal symbols to this reflection, and hence all this heroic speech-miming.

 

Something similar should be going on in the West: there should be some attempt to link phoneme and imago being made. But in the West it is the identification with speech that is less fraught. So someone Western, admirable, and heroic should be 'speaking mime' rather than miming speech. I guess that this has something to do with the secret identities of Western Superheros, but for the time being, I don't know what "speaking mime" is.

 

Addendum. please see the next photo in my photostream. I think that "speaking mime" (the Western equivalent to the mimed speech we see Japanese superheros perform) is all the thought bubbles that we are able to see in Western superhero comics, and all the "hard boiled," coming-from-no-where, narrative that accompanies Western detective movies especially.　In the West, the narrative pervades, it is the centre, the truth of the secret identity.

 

I think, therefore I am Batman.

07:35, 13/01/2023

 

Rack: Love the image on the bridge. I pass over it often. During the early days of the pandemic you could cycle over the slightly loose wooden boards unimpeded by directionless tourists. Now they’ve moved the bike lane to underneath. It’s faster and safer and less romantic. A metaphor for everything. Xoxo

 

Ruin: I would like to be all the best and worst things that we are. Ideally, I would love to have your diaries, those non-stick bones of all your days, the lot. I would then like to combine your bones with mine and wallop all that lovely carrion and oozy stuff on, the blood, guts, piss, shit, cum and spurting pussy juices, to somehow make all that effluvia cohere, congeal, and wantonly cling. In other words that whole nine-yards, that kit and caboodle. Then I would like to go for a screaming/creaming walk together, down through those canyons there (actually anywhere) and over bridges, or even dykes. After that I would like to lose us in the rest, dispersing in the crowd, the dust, that miasma of time, disregarding linearity, or any idea of separation, traversing timelines and genders, utterly permeable, fluid, with no delineation between us and everybody/everything/everywhere else.

 

Apparently, that purple headed catholic monster might be tumefying, engorging, even. I know I can’t do it on my own, so I am stealing from the best, You, Pepys, Ernaux, de Sade, Jarry, Duchamp, Goya, Joyce, Roussel, Gainsborough, 'Stable diffusion' and others, including names that are just emerging, young writers who understand ‘Now’, better than we possibly ever could, us being two old ‘sloping off’ codgers, looking for that perfect wave. Memoirs and diaries seem to be ‘the thing’ now. We are, perhaps, surfing a wave, or might, at least, be gingerly approaching one.

 

What could possibly go wrong, indeed?

 

This for a start, self-delusional grandiosity. But guess what Rack, I am going to risk that one anyway. Risking drowning seems to be par for the course. Let's go.

 

This could be Jack B. Yeats and Mr. Turner going surfing too, different centuries, exactly the same story, perhaps.

 

There would appear to be only one story with countless descriptions/variants of the same, like that hasn't been said a billion times before, thankfully.

 

The little boy drummer at the Ganesha Idol Immersion Ceremony in Pune 2010.

 

An absolute must do ~~ View Large Size on Black

 

www.flickr.com/photos/ezee123/5052322722/sizes/l/in/photo...

 

the Elephant headed God Ganesha of the Hindu pantheon of Gods is an immensely popular deity woshipped assidously in Maharashtra, Goa and some other states. Elaborate ceremonies are enacted for the installation of the deity and then its sanctification and prayers and finally the immersion of the idol in a local river or ghat.

 

The popularity of the celebration in Maharashtra and elsewhere is a comparatively recent phenomenon and came about as a result of vigorous assertion from Lokmanya Tilak around 1895 AD to make it a memorable event full of pomp and paegentry to unite the vast multitudes of Hindus who could install and worship a deity in their own houses as the hitherto superior Gods like Shiva, Krishna and Vishnu were controlled by the Brahmins in their temples where the local people had no popular participation or involvement as a fanfare.

 

It turned out to be a great success in cohering the Hindus of the two echelons and also as a base for showing protest against the British rule.

 

Now it is a noisy / boisterous / loud celebration with the idol carried on the final day for immersion preceded by a fanfare that is chaotic and full of energy. A large contingent of drum beaters make a thunderous display of primal beats as they march down. Now there is a swagger and cultivated poise and stop that has been inculcated as well to make the presentation more dramatic and eye catching.

 

Young kids and girls also do the drum beating which was not what used to happen earlier.

 

Here is one such kid who had unflagging energy to lift a drum almost as big as himself and weighing as much on one leg and continuing the beat with a fervour that the others could not match.

 

Dates

Taken on September 22, 2010 at 2.35pm IST

Posted to Flickr October 5, 2010 at 1.59AM IST

Exif data

Camera Nikon D70

Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1250)

Aperture f/6.3

Focal Length 12 mm

ISO Speed 200

Exposure Bias -1/3 EV

Flash No Flash

X-Resolution 240 dpi

Y-Resolution 240 dpi

Orientation Horizontal (normal)

Software Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows

Date and Time (Modified) 2010:10:05 00:56:41

Exposure Program Aperture-priority AE

Date and Time (Original) 2010:09:22 14:35:01+05:30

Date and Time (Digitized) 2010:09:22 14:35:01

Max Aperture Value 4.0

Metering Mode Multi-segment

Light Source Unknown

 

DSC_3481 from nef sel br cu sat tfm sh 250 pxl replaced with a slightly brighter one

Rockefeller Center is one of those projects where the name is arguably more famous than the forms themselves: everyone knows you have to see it, nobody could really tell you why, though ice skating is sure to be mentioned among the scenic pleasures to be had. The "why" would have been clearer eighty years ago; before the massive scale of postwar urban renewal, this was essentially the demonstration case for what might be possible if a number of adjacent blocks in the undifferentiated commercial city could be assembled together in a single hand, with a coordinated team of designers seeking to assemble something more than the sum of its parts. In this sense, it was a test case long overdue, as the City Beautiful had been testing out versions at various scales for decades (with the reconstitution of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. being perhaps the largest achievement to this point). Rockefeller Center's distinction among these other projects derives primarily from its huge scale, the largely coordinated architectural language among its many pieces, and the one major sop to "public space": a T-shaped void, cut out of a single block, makes for an arrival "promenade" giving way to a rectangular sunken plaza and turning the tallest skyscraper in the set into a monumental presence.

 

That's about it: no closed-off streets, not even a continuation of the "promenade" on to Sixth Avenue. As much of a stunner as this was in the 1930s - and it impressed everybody, even Le Corbusier - it's hard not to wonder if the incompleteness of its civic generosity contributed to the apparent consensus that in fact this was a dead end - and a very, very expensive one for John D. Rockefeller. Postwar urban renewal didn't look like this, in part due to changing ideas about office space and a federally-subsidized suburban boom given further impetus by white flight, "decentralization" propaganda related to fears of aerial bombardment, and all the other usual suspects. Tafuri may be right that the symbolic loading of the business skyscraper as a "magic mountain" (rather than just another anonymous node in a global network of money, information and labor) was itself obsolete. On the other hand, this remains a desirable address, and it remains hard to say: what if the Depression had struck later, and the Metropolitan Opera (who initiated the whole scheme) was able to remain involved, maintaining the idea of a fundamentally "cultural" public centerpiece to the whole affair? What if, along the same lines, plans for a second, perpendicular set of blocks (sending the promenade up to the Museum of Modern Art) had gone through?

 

To an extent, these are idle speculations even by the standards of armchair counterfactuals, since it was precisely Depression-era construction costs that made it practical to build the Center at all. As well, Tafuri might reasonably object that I'm missing the point: even if the "cultural" or "civic" aspects of the scheme could have been made more convincing, it would still be an idea out of time, fighting the current of a grid that insists on the fungible, functional interchangeability of space. But in a more medium-term alternate history I think it could have mattered: urban witnesses to a Rockefeller Center that wasn't merely aesthetically dazzling but urbanistically compelling might have walked away thinking not simply "We've got to get some more bulldozers into the rest of town, pronto" but "we've got to make some more places like that."

 

All of the above, of course, reflects my old New Urbanist background and what I must now regard as a sadly naive hope that by some means, the lineage of the City Beautiful could be restored without having to go through the destructive convulsions of urban renewal. Without rendering the latter as inevitable or natural - we know that they were made out of specific policy choices at particular moments, each of which might have gone differently - it's still hard for me not to see the later developments as part of an interlocking complex of forces that come down less to the disenchanting of mountains as to the real estate logics of downtowns under capitalism. Here, I think Tafuri should be read in tandem with David Harvey, whose similarly Marxist reading is more closely attentive to the postwar American city (see e.g. The Urbanization of Capital; for a more recent take, I strongly recommend Samuel Zipp's Manhattan Projects). The short version is that local governments, enabled by federal and state legislation, were susceptible to the demands of powerful real estate and construction interests which saw enormous profits in redeveloping downtown land for the middle- and professional classes: office towers and high-end modern apartments, clearing what could be conveniently labeled as "slums" and incidentally promising to rescue the city's tax purse from the departure of others to the suburbs.

 

In light of these interests, no amount of "wow" factor from a Rockefeller Center, real or imaginary, could really matter much. The decision-makers were happy to separate their "culture" and their offices - see Lincoln Center and Park Avenue, in tandem with the explosion of upstate corporate campuses - and the city would grow spatially and experientially more fragmentary, not less, even as its remaining working-class population was squeezed onto marginal sites and flung to the periphery.

 

So, suppose I set all that lofty discourse aside and just consider Rockefeller Center "like an architect," whatever that might mean? Well, formally, I think it looks great. The lost opportunities do detract, particularly as they render the complex surprisingly hodge-podgey in its massing. Only the primary symmetrical axis between 49th and 50th sustains the sense of a unified city-crown spread out into several buildings with room for light and pedestrian space. The "side" buildings north of 50th and south of 49th face every which way, with (in those constructed later in the 30s) ballooning massings. They reflect a decreased dependency on windows for ventilation, but fail to cohere with the slimming, inward-stepping profile of the RCA Building, clearly the signature accomplishment of the whole affair. Of the postwar additions across Sixth Avenue - a row of truly desultory International Style skyscrapers of no distinction - the less said, the better. The ornament and embellishments - back in the Thirties part - are impeccable if occasionally kitschy; together, the buildings form an Art Deco Gesamtkunstwerk that was doomed to reject Diego Rivera's contribution like a faulty transplant, even before he painted Lenin into the picture. As works of art, the best buildings here are clearly among the best skyscrapers in New York, at that Chrysler or Seagram level where only a nefarious contrarian would leave them out of the Top Ten, however they were ranked exactly. In many ways, Rockefeller Center was the best of its kind, even if it was simultaneously the first and the last.

 

Recommended reading: In the past year, I've read three different takes on the Center, all of which offer copious illustration and a thorough breaking-down of the development's saga, each with its own larger agenda in play. Manfredo Tafuri's "The Disenchanted Mountain: The Skyscraper and the City" (in the fat American City volume) is a closely-researched and very grounded Marxist analysis of the meaning of "planned" urban space (including Rocekfeller Center, at length) as the logics of capitalism were moving beyond the need for conventional centers or locally symbolic architectural presences. William Jordy's take, in American Buildings and Their Architects, vol. 3, is more conventionally architect-y, with a focus on composition, urban connectivity (for better or worse) and a comparison to other planned spaces in New York. Finally, Rem Koolhaas, in Delirious New York, is most interested in the architects themselves: how the super-team was organized, and how they built up the new informational logics of both the mid-century office and the (highly technical) Rockefeller buildings themselves. I'd say if you read only one, the Tafuri is the most thorough on the history of the project, but if you're absolutely repelled by critical theory of any sort, Jordy (if rather duller) may be more your speed.

 

This shot: The main (really, the only) promenade of the center, moving from Fifth Avenue towards the sunken plaza, with the RCA Building (1931-1933) dominating, and the mid-rise British Empire and Maison Française buildings (1932-1933) framing things up. In the far distance, we glimpse part of the sad postwar sequel along Sixth Avenue (the Avenue of the Americas): Harrison & Abramovitz's Time-Life building, 1957-1959.

So do you really think this wonderful night on the Fabulous Las Vegas Strip is going to end here at the Bellagio Resort & Casino? Did you honestly believe you would get much sleep this weekend? 😈

 

The Fontainebleau up on the North Las Vegas Strip features a swanky and exclusive penthouse nightclub called the Poodle Club — Do you and your Flickr Friend, Thomas Hawk, think y’all can get an invite? 😅 Let’s find out!

 

But Beware — No Cameras Allowed! 📷😧

I built! I actually build a lot; I just never take pictures. This baby's been sitting around for about a year. I added the railgun about six months ago, but otherwise I havent changed it.

 

Anyway the mandatory backstory: Employed as a heavy weapons starfighter, the the HWFA-17 'Tisiphone' starfighter was produced in moderate numbers. It was considered a reliable starfighter, but a glass cannon as well. It lacked powerful shields to make up for its heavy weapons.

Alex Katz, American born 1927

John’s Loft , 1969

 

Oil on aluminum

 

Forgoing all sense of unity, harmony, and resolution, John’s Loft is a riot of incongruous scales and perspectives. Nothing coheres—neither the figures, some of them significantly cropped, nor the panels on which they have been rendered. Illogically, the left side of the figure’s face at the far right has been relocated far to the left. The multiplication of sitters and points of view suggests not only a mobile viewer, someone browsing the same party as the painted figures, catching glimpses behind, across, and in between other guests, but the passage of time as well. In this respect, Katz’s painting performs like a film or a series of photographs, capturing snapshots of otherwise fleeting moments. John’s Loft has been stripped of all contextual detail, including the location referred to in the title: the home of artist John Button.

 

Gift of Alex Katz, 2015 ( 2015.494.2a-g)

 

From the Placard: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

www.metmuseum.org/

 

Identify the Artist XI will begin tomorrow. Sunday, February 11, 2018 and as usual run 10 weeks to the middle of April. Calendrical links are provided below. Come join the party.

 

Identify the Artist XI

 

Week 1 LENT (951 – 955) 2/11 – 2/15/2018

 

Week 2 MIRROR ( 956 – 960) 2/18 - 2/22/2018

 

Week 3 A ROOM WITH A VIEW ( 961 – 965) 2/25 – 3/1/2018

 

Week 4 LIPS (966 – 970 ) 3/4- 3/8/2018

 

Week 5 VENICE (971 -975) 3/11 – 3/15/2018

 

Week 6 Psychedelic Furs Greatest Hits Love My Way (976 -980) 3/19 – 3/22/2018

 

Week 7 DINING ROOM ( 981 – 985) 3/25 - 3/29/2018

 

Week 8 EASTER ( 986 – 990) 4/1/-4/5/2018

 

Week 9 INSIDE CHURCH ( 991-995) 4/8 – 4/12/2018

 

Week 10 PORTRAITS ( 996 – 1000) 4/15 – 4/19/2018

 

The 1st and 2nd place prizes will be a copy of the book: Photography at MoMA: 1960 to Now .

store.moma.org/books/moma-publications/photography-at-mom...

 

In addition to First and Second place prizes, there will be a mailed Art postcard (my choice) acknowledging their participation. Third through Fifth place will also receive an Art postcard.

 

The Rules of the Game:

 

Posting of a detail fragment of a work of art will take place sometime after 8:00 PM EST, five days a week (Sunday; Monday; Tuesday; Wednesday; Thursday. There are no IDs on Friday or Saturday)

Correct answers are allotted points in the following manner:

First correct respondent receives 6 points

Second: 5 points

third: 4 points

fourth: 3 points

fifth: 2 points

Each respondent after that receives 1 point, whether the artist named is correct or not.. 2 points will be awarded if there were not 5 awards.

Incorrect responses will be awarded at least one point (there is no penalty for guessing...actually encouraged). The opportunity to accrue points can only happen within a maximum of 24 hours. Once the full photograph of the work of Art is elevated and the artist identified, no additional scoring (for that work can occur). (In other words, regardless of pleas, points will not be awarded for a comment/ID made days after the posting) ( Also, 15 guesses does not generate 15 points...only 1 point )

A favorite of the photograph will also garnish 1 point ( only if nothing else is ventured by the participant,…1 point is not added to any other points awarded ).

A summary of scores for the top five positions will be published each Sunday, at the beginning of each set of five photographs.

Caveats / Understanding:

Postings may be held up due to circumstances beyond my control.

Delays in posting may occur each evening. ( sorry, no guarantee on 8:00 EST, I’m a working stiff in the finance industry and there are late nights at times. – usually month end btw ).

In addition, as most of you are aware, part of the clues for each identity is a “presence/absence” notation about whether the artist has been in a prior Identity Set. Because flickr’s new format doesn’t facilitate the reading of a long list of names in a “Set’s” overview/description, those lists are also available on request. If you send me an email address that can receive attachments, I will transmit an Windows based Excel sheet with the names of the artists and the number of their paintings/objects. ( Be sure to specify which format you would like: xlsx; xls; csv; txt – tab delimited – if you don’t specify the default is xlsx MS Office-10). ( non-windows participants should request txt).

Also, sorry for the bias the timing provides those in the Americas but no matter how I thought about it… I couldn’t come up with a plan to assist Europe and Asia.

I have brought the great ball of crystal;

............................Who can lift it?

Can you enter the great acorn of light?

..............But the beauty is not the madness

Tho' my errors and wrecks lie about me.

And I am not a demigod,

I cannot make it cohere.

 

Ezra Pound, Cantos 116

Left altar: Votive altar set up by Lucius Pescennius Sedatus in honour of his friend Quintus Voltius Maximus

 

ILAlg 2, 3615

edh.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/edh/inschrift/HD020439

Q(uinto) Voltio / Q(uinti) fil(io) Quir(ina) / Maximo / L(ucius) Pescennius / Sedatus / amico merenti / sua pec(unia) pos(uit) / d(ecreto) d(ecurionum)

 

Right altar: Dedication to the Genius Populus by Q. Leptius Musteolus

 

ILAlg II.1, 3575

edh.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/edh/inschrift/HD020442

 

Genio populi / sacrum / [e]x testamento / Q(uinti) Lepti Musteoli / [---] Iulius Nampulus / M(arcus) Iulius Rogatianus / C(aius) Iulius Vitalis / [f]ratres et coheredes / et heredes Iuli / Maximi cohere/[di]s eorum super HS III mi[l(ia)] / nummum qu(a)e testamen/to fieri decrevit additis / HS num(m)is I(mille) posuerunt / idemque dedicaverunt // [L]ocus datus / Kal(endis) Mai(i)s / Mes(s)alla et Sabino / co(n)s(ulibus) / dicata isd(em) / Idibus Mai(i)s

Built in 1884, this “Free Classic”-variant Queen Anne-style house was built for Homer P. Clark, President of the West Publishing Company, now known as Thompson Reuters. The house features a stucco-clad facade with a “cat slide” roof that extends over a side porte cohere, a decorative front entrance surround with a canopy and brackets, a palladian window on the front gable, and a side sun porch. The house is a contributing structure in the Historic Hill District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

Built in 1855, this Gothic Revival-style mansion was constructed for General Jeremiah T. Boyle, the son of Judge Boyle, for whom Boyle County, of which Danville is the county seat, is named. Boyle was a graduate of Princeton University and Transylvania University’s Law School, practicing law in Harrodsburg until Danville became the county seat of the newly created Boyle County in 1842, whereupon he moved his practice from Harrodsburg to Danville. A supporter of abolition of slavery and emancipation of slaves, Boyle helped raise a regiment of the Union Army, and was shortly thereafter promoted to Brigadier General in recognition of his leadership and conduct. After resigning from his post due to finding parts of his duties unpleasant, he moved to Louisville, where he helped found the Louisville City Railway Company in 1864, and later led the purchase of the Evansville, Henderson, and Nashville Railroad by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. Boyle died in 1871 in Louisville, leaving a legacy behind that shaped the evolution of Kentucky’s largest city well into the 20th Century. The house was later owned by a Baptist Reverend T. M. Vaughn in the late 19th Century. The house features a brick exterior, steep-pitched side gable roof with three steep front gables, decorative “gingerbread” trim at the gable ends, decorative Gothic-style chimneys, double and triple double-hung windows with decorative headers, a porch with Gothic railings at the roof, octagonal columns, and gothic brackets, trefoil windows at the front gables, a side porte cohere added in the early 20th Century with features that match the original porch, and a central double entrance door. The house is one of the contributing structures of the Three Gothic Villas, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and in the Maple Avenue Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

One of the greatest challenges in studying the life and work of the painter and arts educator Channel Pickering Townsley (1867–1921) is that so few of his paintings can be traced with any certainty. There is no comprehensive list of what he produced, only scattered mentions and an occasional photograph. Even when a picture has been reproduced somewhere, basic facts are often missing—when it was painted, how large it is, who owned it after it left his studio, and where it is today.

 

This state of affairs is especially frustrating because Townsley was well regarded and widely known in his day. As a result, the names of many of his works and their approximate dates, together with brief descriptions, are readily available through exhibition catalogues and contemporaneous news stories.

 

Where are those paintings now?

 

In the many months that I have been researching C.P. Townsley, I have come across just two reproductions of his pieces in publications dating to his lifetime. Due to a confluence of fortunate events, one of them proved to be traceable. That is because a prominent organization purchased it shortly after its completion, published news of the acquisition soon after the fact, and still owns it.

 

The other was a poor-quality photo of a painting featuring Townsley's wife and their older daughter. The caption mentioned that the skyscrapers of New York were visible through the windows in the background, but that tantalizing detail eluded capture by the photographic technology of the day.

 

Townsley's undeserved obscurity means that his paintings rarely surface in galleries and auctions. Comets sightings are more common than a Townsley painting that is new to the market, or so it seems.

 

Hence I was astonished last week when a search of Townsley's name turned up an art-history unicorn. I found myself looking at an indoor scene depicting a woman dressed entirely in blue sitting on the same blue padded bench in front of the same blue curtains and brown wall panels as the Dutch woman in Townsley's 1914 Reflections, seen here in the center.

 

I encountered the image in an unexpected corner of the internet: a print-on-demand marketplace where anyone can upload images to be sold as reproductions on prints and merchandise, with the company handling all printing and fulfillment.

 

It is an unattributed reproduction that had clearly been copied and recopied over the years. It was not part of any curated archive, museum database, or scholarly listing that I could find. It simply surfaced during a routine search of Townsley’s name, the sort of search that almost never yields anything new. Its appearance felt accidental, as if it had slipped through a crack in the floorboards of art history and landed, briefly, where I could see it. That image is on the left, above.

 

Its condition required a closer look.

 

The image file itself bore the marks of its long and uncertain journey. The colors were harsh and over-saturated in a way that no early-20th-century painter would have tolerated. Edges were digitally sharpened to the point of distortion, and the shadows seemed mismatched to the light source. All of this suggested multiple rounds of scanning, compression, and algorithmic “enhancement,” each layer drifting the picture further from whatever Townsley originally painted. Rather than a window into his intentions, the image read like a palimpsest—his hand at the bottom, but nearly obscured by later digital handling.

 

Yet even through this interference, the architectural clues spoke clearly.

 

What anchored the fragment to Townsley’s world were the furnishings—the unmistakable built-in bench, the shape of the window bay, the decorative panels, and the idiosyncratic blue drapery whose folds appear in Reflections, seen here in the center.

 

These features match so precisely that they leave little doubt that both works depict the same studio interior. The architectural proportions, the mullion pattern of the windows, and even the height of the bench in relation to the wainscoting all line up. The correspondence is too exact to be accidental. Whatever the distortions in the digital image, its underlying structure places Townsley firmly in his studio, working again with the light and setting he used so effectively in 1914.

 

Faced with a degraded digital remnant, I turned to a different tool.

 

Given the degraded condition of the surviving image, I decided to see whether a reconstruction could bring me closer to what Townsley might actually have painted. I provided ChatGPT with Reflections as a visual model—its treatment of light, its tonal range, its atmosphere—and asked it to reinterpret the “Blue Lady” figure within that vocabulary. The goal was not to fabricate a new artwork but to peel away some of the digital damage and approximate the painterly world Townsley inhabited: the quieter palette, the controlled illumination, and the characteristic softness he brought to interior scenes.

 

That reconstruction then required its own careful refinement.

 

The AI reconstruction was only a starting point. I then used Photoshop to temper the overly vivid colors that modern rendering tends to exaggerate, brightening the room with a gentler, more natural light. I also borrowed details directly from Reflections, copying the windows and the outdoor view into the reimagined composition so that both images share the same visual anchor. These adjustments were not attempts to “finish” a lost painting but to make the reconstruction cohere with what Townsley demonstrably painted in that room.

 

The recreated Blue Lady is on the right.

 

Finally, a broader reflection seems necessary.

 

No digital reconstruction can claim authenticity, nor should it. What it can offer is a stronger sense of the lost original’s aesthetic world—its likely tonalities, its architectural setting, its compositional logic, and its relationship to Townsley’s known work. In cases where the historical record is fragmentary, such exercises help clarify patterns: the reuse of studio settings, Townsley’s interest in introspective domestic interiors, and his sensitivity to directional light.

 

They also underscore the fragility of an artist’s legacy when so few works survive in traceable form. A reconstruction does not replace the missing painting, but it can illuminate the space it once occupied.

a duration of sound poetry & similaria

edited, reärranged & constraducted by jwcurry

& realized through the combined auditoria of

jwcurry Alastair Larwill Georgia Mathewson Brian Pirie

7 PM 21 octo 12 at Common Ground Art Gallery

3277 Sandwich Street, Windsor

__________________________________________________

 

part 1

 

1. Scraptures: 12th Sequence, bpNichol (Canada, 1967?); source: photocopy from TORONTO LIFE (issue # & editor unknown, Toronto, 1968). & on the 12th "day", humanity stuck its heads up from the muck & goo, took a look around in its state of ignorant grace, & knew but lustful fear. arrangement dedicated to Jan Svankmeyer. full quartet

 

2. WELTWEHE, August Stramm (Germany, 1914); source: KROKLOK ⌗3 (ed.dom sylvester houédard, London, UK, Writers Forum, 1972). Stramm's scope is nothing less than cosmic in this, his most extreme narrative composed almost solely of verbs, fuelled & shaped by the battlefields he wrote in & the ciphers he wired his poems home through. solo

 

3. SIX-FOUR, Alastair Larwill (Canada, 2o1o); source: unpublished manuscript. accumulative disintegrational polysyllabicism formulated as an audio illustration in a discussion of articulational deliberateness with its dedicatee, Rob Read. full quartet

 

4. Generations, bpNichol (Canada, 1988); source: bpNichol, gIFTS The Martyrology Book(s) 7 (&) (Toronto, Coach House Press, 199o). Nichol's numerical interpolations distract & enact a simultaneous metanarrative between his given text & what's given through his interferences with it. solo

 

5. Againful Deployment, jwcurry (Canada, 1981?); source: monograph (Ottawa, 1cent, 2oo1). a "sound poem for an assemblyline of voicings" spiralling outta the conch into yr cochnea. full quartet

 

6. Salmon River Soliloquy, David UU (Canada, 1973); source: David UU, High C (Toronto, Underwhich Editions, 1991). a rather straightforward poem siding with the fishes. solo

 

7. anacyclic poem with two shouts DHARMATHOUGHTS STUPAWARDS, dom sylvester houédard (England, 1966); source: KROKLOK ⌗1 (ed.dom sylvester houédard, London, Writers Forum, 1971). "for the artists protest committee for their call from losangeles for a tower against the war", an anagrammatic poem in 3 vowels & 4 consonants. duo: curry/Mathewson

 

8. " BREATH IS ", bill bissett (Canada, 1966?); source: bill bissett, fires in th tempul OR TH JINX SHIP ND OTHR TRIPS (Vancouver, Very Stone House, 1966). one of bissett's concrete scattertexts, here divided into a demonstration of the logic inherent in his more radical field compositions. duo: curry/Larwill

 

9. Oiseautal / Super-Bird-Song, Raoul Hausmann (France, 1918?) & Kurt Schwitters (England, 1946?) respectively; source: Raoul Hausmann & Kurt Schwitters, PIN and the story of PIN (London, UK, Gaberbocchus Press, 1962). brought together by the 1st world war & separated by the 2nd, both friends independently came to write short works based on birdsound. this interlineated arrangement by curry (2oo9?) is a step toward A Visit to the Aviary, a short suite of related material from various sources. duo: curry/Pirie

 

1o. THREE/FOUR: OF TIME, bpNichol (Canada, 1985); source: 5e echanges internationaux de poesie contemporaine, ed.Julien Blaine (Tarascon, France, L'A.G.R.I.P.P.A., 1988). the 3rd in Nichol's "TIME" series "for the 4 Horsemen", this one targetting the structure of the waltz for vigorous interrogation. full quartet

 

11. Calling The Vegetable Collected, jwcurry (Canada, 2oo8); source: monograph (2nd ed, Ottawa, 1cent, 2oo8). hocketed statements that build multiple syntactic paths as the fragments first cohere, then disintegrate. full quartet

 

12. GLiNE OR EXTRATERRESTRIAL OCCURRENCES, Vaughn Bodé (USA, 1972?); source: Vaughn Bodé, JUNKWAFFEL no.3 (Berkeley, The Print Mint, 1972). Bodé's 5pp comic relieved of its graphic anchor, its text no less rich in its significtions despite the lack of signposts. solo

 

13. KNOTS, jwcurry (Canada, 1982?); source: The (Almost) Instant Anthology '88, ed.Beverley Daurio, Daniel Jones & bpNichol (Toronto, Meet The Presses, 1988). excerpts from a "translation into concrete poetry" of R.D.Laing's lineated neuroses trackings, subsequently unreknotted & strung out as a schizologue for 2. duo: Larwill/Mathewson

 

14. The Tibetan Memory Trick, traditional/arranged by Howard Kaylan, Ian Underwood & Mark Volman (USA, 1974); source: Flo & Eddie, ILLEGAL, IMMORAL AND FATTENING (Canadian pressing, Columbia Records Limited, 1975). spontaneous insertion into KNOTS above. everyone in the band gets put through this one for articulational, breathing & body memory development. full quartet.

 

15. AGATHA! WAKE UP! I'M CURED!, Richard Beland (Canada, 1992?); source: unpublished manuscript. Beland's language lines are as plastic as his visual lines, this short prose morphing from sense to sound to resense with every step. solo

 

16. MUSHY PEAS, Steve McCaffery & bpNichol (England, 1978); source: Steve McCaffery & bpNichol, IN ENGLAND NOW THAT SPRING (Toronto, Aya Press, 1979). 6 pp of drawn optophonetics as visual field for improvisation. duo: curry/Larwill

 

17. sounds' favorite words, Paul Haines (Canada, 1986), as quoted in full in an extract from Haines' Jubilee; source: Paul Haines, Secret Carnival Workers (Toronto? H Pal Productions, 2oo7), with reference to Michel Contat's reading on Haines' DARN IT! (USA, American Clavé, 1994). hijacked as a footnote of manysorts. Jubilee ends "Unrelatedly, there was a recital of whisk the morning of 17 July after a night the cats had raised hell on the front lawn, a group of robins fallen by the side of the hedge as though meeting on a street corner and – now headless to prove it – plumb run out of things to say, but still prettier representations of events than the sparrows the exact size of erasers stacked up with the heads on. // Which of course are words apart." solo

 

part 2

 

18. TOTEM ÉTRANGLÉ, Antonin Artaud (France, 1964?); source: KROKLOK ⌗2 (ed.dom sylvester houédard, London, Writers Forum, 1971), with reference to Antonin Artaud/trans.Helen Weaver, Selected Writings (New York,Farrar Straus And Groux, 1976). "For years I have had an idea of the consumption, the internal consummation of language by the unearthing of all manner of torpid and filthy necessities." (Artaud in a letter to Henri Parisot, 22 sep 45). 18 of these sound cycles excised (by Artaud) from elsewhere in his writings (Here Lies; Insanity and Black Magic; The Return of Artaud, Le Momo; To Have Done with the Judgement of God; Van Gogh, The Man Suicided by Society) & formally linked as a suite. full quartet

 

19. ma meeshka mow skwoz, Mike Patton (USA, 1995); source: monograph (San Francisco, privately published, 1995), with reference to Mr.Bungle, disco volante (USA, Warner Brothers Records Incorporated, 1995), with music by Trey Spruance. Patton's drawn optophonetic text yields "extended range" vocalics that're all but buried in this complex piece of high-impact chamber music. a chance to hear the relentless trajectory of the text on its own. solo

 

2o. East Wind, bpNichol (Canada, 1979?); source: Four Horsemen, The Prose Tattoo (Milwaukee, Membrane Press, 1983). a gridtext deployed through overlaid extended breathlines, vowels blowing consonants all over the place. full quartet

 

21. The Multiples, Steve McCaffery (Canada, 1981); source: abs TruCt heh GarBagt, editor unknown (an insert in CABINET ⌗1, USA, Immaterial Incorporated, 2ooo), transcribed by Rob Read (Canada, 2o11?). a multiplicity of mispronuncimicated masticatiums of eaneming, the contrast between what you seam to be hearing & what are here seming to be. duo: curry/Mathewson

 

22. A Letterklankbeelden Poem, I.K.Bonset (Holland, 192o); source: Imagining Language An Anthology, edited by Steve McCaffery & Jed Rasula (2nd ed, Cambridge, USA, MIT Press, 2oo1). with line lengths (mainly) one letter long, Bonset – among other things, a type designer – was simultaneously & independently investigating notions of optophonetics similar to Raoul Hausmann's with diacritic modifiers. terse. solo

 

23.SIZERZ, Steve McCaffery (Canada, 1976); source: THE CAPILANO REVIEW ⌗31 (ed.Steven Smith & Richard Truhlar, North Vancouver, 1984). severe elemental hocketing coupled with ordered layerings subjected to consistent randomizations. full quartet

 

24. roses that, d.a.levy (USA, 1966); source: UKANHAVYRFUCKINCITI BAK, ed.Robert J.Sigmund (Cleveland, Ghost Press, 1968). "for gene" (presumably Fowler), a cyclic concrete poem in linear form pumping ackackfire into the imperialism of semantic politics. solo

 

25. IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, Frank Zappa (USA, 1964); source: Mothers Of Invention, FREAK OUT! (USA, Verve Records, 1965), transcribed & arranged by jwcurry (2oo7). a somewhat remented barberchopping routine that only seems to leave metre & tonality behind, part 2 of Help, I'm A Rock, featuring Georgia Mathewson as Suzy Creamcheese ("You blew your mind on too much koolaid"). full quartet

 

26. BALLADS OF THE RESTLESS ARE, bpNichol (Canada, 1967?); source: monograph (2nd ed. Ottawa, Curvd H&z, 2oo6). "two versions/common source" of elemental theme & variations presented as comparative simultaneities in a "quartet for 2 voices" [curry]. duo: curry/Larwill

 

27. A Little Valentine, Steve McCaffery (Canada, 1977); source: Steve McCaffery, research on the mouth (Toronto, Underwhich Editions, 1978?), transcribed & arranged by jwcurry & Sheena Mordasiewicz (2o12). a trystcycle built for 2 interpenetrates itself to become a relentless rush toward simultaneous climax. duo: curry/Larwill

 

28. Pieces Of Stop, bpNichol (Canada, 1978); source: as 2o above. "for Greta Monach", an extremely literal approach to the score that casts the reversed expectations of its sound envelopes into stark relief. full quartet

 

29. auf dem land, ernst jandl (Austria, 1968?); source: konkrete poesie deutschsprachige autoren, ed.eugen gomringer (reprint? Stuttgart, Philipp Reclam, 198o). an "utter zoo" octupletted & arranged as simultaneous nouns'n'sounds. duo: curry/Larwill

 

3o. GLASS ON THE BEACH, Richard Truhlar (Canada, 1978?); source: Owen Sound, Beyond The Range (Toronto, Underwhich Editions, 198o), transcribed by jwcurry from a trio (Michael Dean, Steven Smith, Richard Truhlar) recording at The Music Gallery in Toronto, 18 august 1979, with additional parts adapted from 2 manuscript scores courtesy of Truhlar. extended vocal waveforms with buried shards. full quartet

__________________________________________________

 

with Big Thanks to Gustave Morin for causing it, Jenny Kimmerly for the programmes, Jarrod Ferris for filming, Kung To for rehearsal space, Chris (dunno yr last name) & Sergio Forest for the fantastic homemade onion rings &, 'fcourse, the band for the pleasure & hard work

 

front cover: bpNichol, Pieces Of Stop (28), rescored by jwcurry (bottom: lettering by curry)

rear cover: dom sylvester houédard, anacyclic poem with two shouts DHARMATHOUGHTS STUPAWARDS (7)

__________________________________________________

 

see also:

 

announcements:

www.flickr.com/photos/48593922@N04/8078983925/

www.citywindsor.ca/residents/Culture/Mackenzie-Hall/Pages...

pagehalffull.com/pesbo/2012/10/12/sunday-oct-21-messagio-...

issuu.com/uwindsorlance/docs/thelance-85-16 (down on p.6)

www.flickr.com/photos/48593922@N04/8152980663/

 

photographs:

www.flickr.com/photos/pearlpirie/8119045118/

www.flickr.com/photos/pearlpirie/8119033749/

www.flickr.com/photos/pearlpirie/8119034091/

www.flickr.com/photos/pearlpirie/8119046498/

www.flickr.com/photos/pearlpirie/8119034923/

Flickr: Explore!

I came across this fragment of someone else's life in the icy snows of Wingra Park on one of the coldest day of the year. It had been touched by fire (perhaps someone had been burning papers in the fireplace, and this little piece flew up the chimney), and now it lay frozen in the snow.

 

First I thought it said "Mt Remembering," which led me to imagine some huge snow-capped mountain of memories stacked as high as the eye could see, but that didn't make much sense, and looking more closely, I saw that it said "Not Remembering."

 

When we come across notes that have been discarded or lost by other people, they usually raise more questions than they answer; this was no exception, and it came with its a paradox of its own: Usually we write notes to remind ourselves of something, in order not to forget. But why write a note to remember "not remembering"? And why write it on both sides of the paper, as indicated by the faint reverse lettering? And why "not remembering" instead of simply "forgetting"? Is there a difference, and if so, what? It's a mystery, as are so many things about memory and forgetting.

 

"I can't remember" means different things to different people. For some, forgetting something is a momentary irritation -- wait a moment, and it will some back. For others, the loss of memory is connected with a profound struggle to preserve a sense of self. Most of us are somewhere in between the extremes, and we negotiate our own tradeoffs between memory and forgetting, writing down the reminders we need, and letting go what we don't need. Nobody can remember everything. And again, some can remember very little.

 

"Forgetting It All" is the title of a powerful essay in the NYT by Floyd Skloot, a poet and author and father of best-selling science writer Rebecca Skloot. A viral attack 25 years ago devastated his memory centers, abstract reasoning capability and sense of structure -- all qualities that would seem vital to a writer. And yet he has not only coped, but had a productive career as a writer in the years since his illness. His account makes fascinating reading, and we can all learn from it. I love his closing lines:

 

Since I can’t assume I’ll remember anything, I must live fully in the present. Since I can’t assume my experience will cohere, I must prize its fragmentation. Since I can’t fix or escape my damaged brain, I must learn to be at peace with it. And since I can’t assume I’ll master anything I do, I must let go of mastery as a goal and seek harmony instead.

   

#holiday #metal #metalsense #norush #coherer #blank

Thomson Rd, Ipoh.

The eastern suburbs of Ipoh bounded by Tambun Road and Gopeng Road accommodated the leafy suburbs developped during the boom years for Ipoh in the 1920s and 1930s. Many salubrious bungalows and residences popped up along with social diversions such as the Perak Turf Club (1926), the Ipoh Golf Club (1932) and St Andrew's Church (1929). Life for the residents was comfortable with large houses, set amongst large gardens, with space for amahs' quarters. The houses were in a variety of styles from earlier Straits Ecletic to Anglo-Malay bungalows (as is the case here) to Home Counties 'stockbroker belt' architecture of the 1930s. The original residents would have been expatriate mining staff or those employed in government administration or the service industries in Ipoh. It is unlikely that this house would have been originally a Chinese residence as it is not ostentatious enough to suggest a towkay's home.

 

The architectural style here is a typical Anglo-Malay bungalow, found throughout the Straits Settlements and the FMS. It combines Eurpean architectural idiom (particularly Palladian elements) with Chinese and Malay styles with adaptations to the tropical climate for ventilation and protection from sun and rain; louvred French windows, high ceiling interiors, clerestorey windows, porte-cohere and the use of air-wells and vents in the loft.

 

Sadly, this beauty now lies abandoned and awaits its fate; its roof broken, wooden shutters falling apart and rotting. The once neat lawn is now a riot of lalang grass. The future doesn't bode well. Next door is a sprawling brand new residential complex named "The Thompsons", full of modern bungalow-style houses priced at MYR2.6m - 5.3m. The owner of this house is probably just waiting for the right asking price from a developer...

 

By the way, the old name for the road (now called Jalan Tun Dr Ismail) was Thomson Road (without a 'p'), named after Henry Wagstaffe Thomson, the 17th British Resident of Perak (1927-1929). It is something of an inaccuracy, therefore, for the new residential complex to be named 'The Thompsons" - with a 'p. Reminds me of those twin bungling detectives in the Tintin books, Thomson and Thompson.

an evening of sound poetry & similaria read by

jwcurry

Rachel Lindsey

Sheena Mordasiewicz

Brian Pirie

Zachary Robert

& special guest Alastair Larwill

1o august 2o12 at Rockcliffe Park Pavillion in Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa, 7 PM

__________________________________________________

 

part 1

 

1. sounds' favorite words, Paul Haines (Canada, 1986), as quoted in full in an extract from Haines' Jubilee; source: Paul Haines, Secret Carnival Workers (Toronto?, H Pal Productions, 2oo7), with reference to Michel Contat's reading on Haines, DARN IT! (USA, American Clavé, 1994). hijacked as an introduction of manysorts. Jubilee ends "Unrelatedly, there was a recital of whisk the morning of 17 July after a night the cats had raised hell on the front lawn, a group of robins fallen by the side of the hedge as though meeting on a street corner and – now headless to prove it –plumb run out of things to say, but still prettier representations of events than the sparrows the exact size of erasers stacked up with the heads on. // Which of course are words apart." reader: curry

 

2. anacyclic poem with two shouts DHARMATHOUGHTS STUPAWARDS, dom sylvester houédard (England, 1966); source: KROKLOK ⌗1 (ed.dom sylvester houédard, London, Writers Forum, 1971). "for the artists protest committee for their call from losangeles for a tower against the war (houédard in KROKLOK ⌗1), an anagrammatic poem in 3 vowels & 45 consonants. readers: curry, Mordasiewicz

 

3. TAR TRAITS, Richard Truhlar (Canada, 1977); source: primarily-unpublished manuscript (excerpts published as a postcard, Toronto, Curvd H&z, 1989; in INDUSTRIAL SABOTAGE ⌗54, ed.jwcurry, Ottawa, Curvd H&z, 1997; in 1CENT ⌗35o, ed.jwcurry, Ottawa, 2oo1). curry's arrangement (2o12) of Truhlar's sound excavations from Steve McCaffery's THe TeN PoRtRaiTS (1973), itself derived from an "interview with some N.Y. prostitutes". McCaffery's note on his own compositional methods in Ow's Waif (Toronto, Coach House Press, 1975) apply even moreso to Truhlar's furtherance of it: "The operating analogy in many cases was cubism: the process of fragmentation and reconstitution of a known thing in a fresh form." readers: curry, Lindsey, Pirie

 

4. Scraptures: 12th Sequence, bpNichol (Canada, 1967?); source: bpNichol, gifts (Toronto, Coach House Press, 199o); arrangement by curry (2o12): & on the 12th "day", humanity stuck its heads up from the muck & goo, took a look around in its state of ignorant grace, & knew but lustful fear. arrangement dedicated to Jan Svankmeyer. full quintet

 

5. A Little Valentine, Steve McCaffery (Canada, 1977); source: Steve McCaffery, research on the mouth (Toronto, Underwhich Editions, 1978?), transcribed & arranged by curry & Mordasiewicz (2o12). a trystcycle built for 2 interpenetrates itselves to become a relentless rush toward simultaneous climax. readers: curry, Mordasiewicz

 

6. breath is, bill bissett (Canada, 1966?); source: fires in th tempul OR TH JINX SHIP ND OTHR TRIPS (Vancouver, Very Stone House, 1966), arranged by curry (2oo9). one of bissett's concrete scattertexts, here divided into a duo demonstration of the logic inherent in his more radical field compositions. readers: curry, Lindsey

 

7. EAST WIND, bpNichol (Canada, 1979?); source: Four Horsemen, The Prose Tattoo (Milwaukee, Membrane Press, 1983). gridtext deployed through overlaid extended breathlines, our version approaches the score much more literally than did the Horsemen's more freewheeling phonetic romps. readers: curry, Lindsey, Mordasiewicz, Pirie

 

8. The Dangerous Kitchen, Frank Zappa (USA, 1983?); source: monograph (North Hollywood, Munchkin Music, 1984), with reference to many recorded versions, most specifically on Frank Zappa, The Man from Utopia (Los Angeles, Barking Pumpkin Records, 1983), while Zappa's lyrics are ordinarily accompanied by improvised electric jazzband meltdown boop-bop atonalities, we thought it worth a lampshade to simulate some verbal discontinuities for an alternate avenue toward parasepsis. readers: full sextet

 

9. The Tibetan Memory Trick, traditional/arranged by Howard Kayland, Ian Underwood & Mark Volman (USA, 1974); source: Flo & Eddie, ILLEGAL, IMMORAL AND FATTENING (Canadian pressing, Columbia Records, 1975). everyone in the band gets put through this one for articulational, breathing & body memory development. inserted into 8 above. full sextet

 

part 2

 

1o. The Multiples, Steve McCaffery (Canada, 199-?); source: transcription by Rob Read (2o11?) from a recording by McCcaffery (unpublished?). a multiplicity of mispronuncimicated masticatiums of eaneming; a study in contrasts between what you seme to be hearing & what you here are seeming to be. readers: curry, Lindsey

 

11. Calling The Vegetable Collected, jwcurry (Canada, 2oo8); source: monograph (2nd ed, Ottawa, 1cent, 2oo8). hocketed statements that build multiple syntactic paths as the fragments first cohere, then disintegrate. readers: curry, Lindsey, Mordasiewicz, Pirie

 

12. Againful Deployment, jwcurry (Canada, 1981?); source: monograph (Ottawa, 1cent, 2oo1). a "sound poem an assemblyline of voicings" spiralling outta the conch into yr cochnea. readers: full quintet

 

13. Salmon River Soliloquy, david uu (Canada, 1972); source: david uu, High C (Toronto, Underwhich Editions, 1991). a rather straightforward poem siding with the fishes. reader: curry

 

14. Oiseautal / Super-Bird-Song, Raoul Hausmann (France, 1918?) & Kurt Schwitters (England, 1946?), respectively; source: Raoul Hausmann & Kurt Schwitters, PIN and the story of PIN (London, Gaberbocchus Press, 1962). brought together by the 1st world war & separated by the 2nd, both friends independently came to write short works based on birdsound. this interlineated arrangement by curry (2oo9?) is a step toward A Visit to the Aviary, a short suite on related material from various sources. readers: curry, Pirie

 

15. A Little Nastiness, Four Horsemen [Rafael Barreto-Rivera, Paul Dutton, Steve McCaffery, bpNichol] (Canada, 1981); source: (as 7 above). semantics go sonic through interpersonal badinage. readers: full quintet

 

16. KNOTS, jwcurry (Canada, 1982?); source: The (Almost) Instant Anthology '88, ed.Beverley Daurio, Daniel Jones & bpNichol (Toronto, Meet The Presses, 1988). excerpts from a "translation into concrete poetry" of R.D.Laing's lineated neuroses trackings, subsequently unreknotted & strung out as schizologue for 2 voices. readers: curry, Mordasiewicz

 

17. SIZERZ, Steve McCaffery (Canada, 1976); source: THE CAPILANO REVIEW ⌗31 (ed.Steven Smith & Richard Truhlar, North Vancouver, 1984). severe elemental hocketing coupled with ordered layerings subjected to consistent randomizations. readers: curry, Lindsey, Mordasiewicz, Pirie

 

18. MUSHY PEAS, Steve McCaffery & bpNichol (England, 1978); source: Steve McCaffery & bpNichol, IN ENGLAND NOW THAT SPRING (Toronto, Aya Press, 1979). 6 pages of optophonetics as improvisational ground. readers: curry, Lindsey, Pirie

 

19. IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, Frank Zappa (USA, 1964); source: Mothers Of Invention, FREAK OUT! (USA, Verve Records, 1965), transcribed & arranged by curry (2oo7). a somewhat remented barbershopping routine that only seems to leave metre & tonality behind, part 2 of Help, I'm A Rock, featuring Rachel Lindsey as Suzy Creamcheese ("what's got into ya, hunny?"). readers: curry, Lindsey, Pirie, Robert

 

part 3

 

2o. Dew On The Newts We Got, Frank Zappa (USA, 197o?); source: Frank Zappa, 2oo MOTELS (reissue, Salem, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Incorporated & Rykodisc, 1997), transcribed by curry (2o12). the 3rd movement (of 7) of the primarily choral suite I Have Seen The Pleated Gazelle (a goblin made me do it). readers: curry, Lindsey

 

21. BALLADS OF THE RESTLESS ARE, bpNichol (Canada, 1967?); source: monograph (2nd ed, Ottawa, Curvd H&z, 2oo6), arranged by curry (2oo9). "two versions/common source" of elemental theme & variations presented as comparative simultaneity in a "quartet for 2 voices". readers: curry, Robert

 

22. Pieces Of Stop, bpNichol (Canada, 1978); source: (as 7 above). "for Greta Monach", an extremely literal take that casts the reversed expectations of its sound envelopes into starker relief. readers: curry, Lindsey, Mordasiewicz, Pirie

 

23. auf dem land, ernst jandl (Austria, 1968?); source: konkrete poesie deutschsprachige autoren, ed.Eugen Gomringer (reprint?, Stuttgart, Philipp Reclam, 198o). an "utter zoo" octupletted & here arranged as simultaneous nouns'n'souns. readers: curry, Robert

 

24. THREE/FOUR: OF TIME, bpNichol (Canada, 1985); source: 5e échanges internationaux de poésie contemporaine, ed.Julien Blaine (Tarascon, L'A.G.R.I.P.P.A., 1988). the 3rd in Nichol's "TIME" series "for the 4 Horsemen", this one targeting the structure of the waltz for vigorous interrogation. readers: curry, Mordasiewicz, Pirie, Robert

 

25. GOING CRITICAL, jwcurry & Michèle Provost (Canada, 2oo9); source: ABSTrACTS / RéSUmÉS, ed.Michèle Provost (Gatineau, privately published, 2o1o). a critical appreciation of Marcel Dzama (by Joseph R.Wollin in Canadian Art 25:3) is subjected to sibilant excision & extreme subsyllabic hocketing, revealing an altogether different narrative perhaps closer in spirit to Dzama than Wolin may have intended. readers: full quintet

 

26. WORM, bob cobbing (England, 1964); source: CEOLFRITH ⌗26 (ed.Peter Mayer, Sunderland, Ceolfrith Press, 1974). one of cobbing's earliest semantic derivations into sound burrowing through concrete. raeders: full quintet

 

27. GLASS ON THE BEACH, Richard Truhlar (Canada, 1978?); source: Owen Sound [Michael Dean, David Penhale, Steven Smith, Richard Truhlar], Beyond The Range (Toronto, Underwhich Editions, 198o), trancribed by curry (2oo9) from a trio (Dean, Smith, Truhlar) recording at The Music Gallery in Toronto, 18 august 1979, with additional parts adapted from 2 manuscript scores courtesy of Truhlar. extended vocal waveforms with buried shards. readers: full sextet

 

__________________________________________________

 

front cover: bpNichol, THREE/FOUR: OF TIME

rear cover: jwcurry, Calling The Vegetable Collected

 

Big Thanks to all involved with extra dollops to Rachel Lindsey (vehicular vivacity & copymagic), Brian Pirie (communications), Ben Walker (documenteur), Amanda Earl (further communications contagion), Rachel Zavitz (tender love & care department) & Jessica Pieterse (who first brought me to the pavillion (you knew, didn't you!)). an extra whack on the back for Alastair Larwill, who came in on 3 pieces with us by spontaneous request.

 

__________________________________________________

 

filmed by Ben Walker

__________________________________________________

 

see also:

 

invitation

 

photos by Pearl Pirie:

Sheena Mordasiewicz pre-reading

Rachel Lindsey pre-reading

jwcurry pre-reading

Brian Pirie pre-reading

Alastair Larwill pre-reading

A Little Valentine

The Dangerous Kitchen 1

The Dangerous Kitchen 2

The Dangerous Kitchen 3

The Dangerous Kitchen 4

 

review & photos by Rob McLennan:

www.robmclennan.blogspot.ca/2012/08/messagio-galore-take-...

So did you really think this wonderful night on the Fabulous Las Vegas Strip was going to end here at the Bellagio Resort & Casino? Did you honestly believe you would get much sleep this weekend? 😈

 

The Fontainebleau up on the North Las Vegas Strip features a swanky and exclusive penthouse nightclub called the Poodle Club — Do you and your Flickr Friend, Thomas Hawk, think y’all can get an invite? 😅 Let’s find out!

 

But Beware — No Cameras Allowed! 📷😧

1964 lido tower apartments / hamilton ontario

Why is that Japanese groups are so varied? At the earliest level super-sentai (power ranger) and PreCure groups contain members coded with different primary colours. In Manga there are usually groups formed of people with disparate sizes, characters, and even colours of their hair. Yowamushi Pedal, the manga about cycling, contains a red head, a blond and a guy with green hair. Slam Dunk, like most super sentai groups, chose to focus upon a red hero. Japanese boy bands are formed by their managers with members with disparate appearances and characters. There is usually an especially handsome one, a sporty member, a macho member, and a mixture of other types such as withdrawn, effete, and jokey (this characteristic may be shared by famous Western boy bands too).

 

And even within real Japanese social groups, there is a lot more diversity with Japanese not considering their friends more similar than their enemies, nor their enemies more alien than their friends (Heine, Foster, & Spina, 2009).

 

Yuki (2003) explains the cultural difference primarily using the concept of social identity (Tajfel, 1982). Western groups are formed and cohere by virtue of their effect upon the self esteem of their members. The more similar the group is, the more the members will bolster each other's ego by noting and praising this similarity, and slagging off (the psychological jargon is downwards comparison) other groups. "We Brits are rational, level headed, gentlemen. Those XYZ are temperamental, hot-headed, rogues." The enjoyment of pride as motivation for group membership and cohesion, Yuki argues, assimilates and unifies Western groups towards central group ideals. Another example of this slaggiong off of outgroups is what Edward Said calls Orientalism. Japanese groups are not, Yuki argues, formed for this "Good-Us Bad-Them" ego-massage-purpose so they are not so uniform.

 

Yuki also seems to suggest that there is a further opposite tendency to be disparate due to the way in which Japanese group members depend upon each other, in which mutual help network, group membership diversity leads to greater synergy and mutual assistance benefits.

 

I was convinced by Yuki's explanation. However, this year, a final year student (Egawa, 2015) has demonstrated a strong positive correlation between similarity and perceived helpableness. Whatever the economic truth of the situation, as Plato argued in his Symposium, we, or at least Japanese students, feel we can help someone who shares our goals and ambitions more than someone disparate: even our other half.

 

So why then are Japanese groups so diverse to the point of being multi-coloured? I suggest that it is for the same reason that Western groups are similar -- ego massage -- except as always, the difference is in the modality, and the way that modality is enhanced. If groups are, like Western egos, narrated then they are enhanced by the value and superiority of their central attributes compared to those of other groups. But if groups are something that are seen and imagined then outgroups are absent, and groups simply look better if they contain a certain amount of diversity, since diversity makes the members conspicuous, stand out, or in Japanese, "hikitatsu." Colours are nowhere more beautiful than alongside other colours, such as in a rainbow.

 

Heine, S. J., Foster, J.-A. B., & Spina, R. (2009). Do birds of a feather universally flock together? Cultural variation in the similarity-attraction effect. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 12(4), 247–258. Retrieved from onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-839X.2009.0128...

Tajfel, H. (1982). Social Identity and Intergroup Relations. Cambridge University Press.

Tareekh dey rahi hai yeh awaaz dam ba dam

Dasht-e-sabat-o-Azm hai Dast-e-Bala-o-Gam

Sabr-e-Maseeh wa juraa't suqrat ki qasam

 

Is rah mea hai sirf ek insaan ka qadam

Jis kee rago'n mein Aatish-e-Badr-o-Hunain Hai

Us soorma ka isme girami Hussain Hai

History is making a repeated clarian call,

It's the wilderness of resoluteness, of woe and gall,

By the fortitude of Christ, by Socrates' valour,

This path is trodden alone, by a man of honour,

The man, tempered are whose veins, by the fire of Badr and Hunain,

He is the valiant being, his sweet name is Hussain.

Jo Saheb-e-Mizaj-e-Naboowat tha wo Hussain

Jo waris-e-zameer-e-Risalat tha wo Hussain

Jo Khalwati-e-Shahid-e-Qudrat tha wo Hussain

Jis kaa wojood fakhr-e-mashiat tha wo Hussain

Sanchay main dhalney key liye Kainaat ko

Jo tolta tha Nok-e-Mazaa' par hayat ko

Of the attributes of the Prophet, the perceiver was Hussain,

Of the holiness of the Prophet, the inheritor was Hussain,

Of the Secrets of Nature, an evidence was Hussain,

Of Providence, the best creature, in existence was Hussain,

For shaping out the universe, in the best of mould,

With the point of his eye-lash, he measured life's gold.

 

Jo Ek nishan-e-Tashna dhani tha wo Hussain

Geeti pey Arsh kee jo nishani tha wo Hussain

Jo Khuld ka Ameer-e-Jawani tha wo Hussain

Jo Ek san-e-jadeed ka bani tha wo Hussain

Jis ka Lahu Talatum-e-pinhaa'n liye huway

Har boond mein tha Nooh ka Toofan liye huway

Hussain was a lone symbol, of utter thirst,

Hussain was a Heavenly sign, on this very dust,

Hussain was the lord, of the youths of Paradise,

Hussain was the creator of an epoch, glorious and nice,

Into his blood, the commotion lay but calm,

And into each drop, there was Noah's storm.

 

Jo Karwan-e-Azm ka Rehbar tha wo Hussain

Khud Apney khoon kaa jo shanawar tha wo Hussain

Ek Deen-e-Tazaa ka jo payambar tha wo Hussain

Jo Karbala ka dawar-e-Mehshar tha wo Hussain

Jis kee nazar pey Shewa-e-Haq ka madar tha

Jo Rooh-e-Inqilab ka parwardigar tha

Of the men of resolution, Hussain was the leader,

Into the pool of his own blood, Hussain was the swimmer,

Of the revival faith, the messenger was Hussain,

Of Karbala's resurrecting day, the creator was Hussain,

In his approbation, lay the will of Providence,

Of the spirit of revolution, he was the main essence.

 

Ha'n ab bhi jo manara-e-Azmat Hai wo Hussain

Jis kee nigah marg-e-Adawat Hai wo Hussain

Ab bhi jo Mehwa-e-Dars-e-Mohabbat Hai wo Hussain

Aadam kee jo daleel-e-Sharafat hai wo Hussain

Wahid jo ek namoona hai zibh-e-Azeem Ka

Allah rey intekhab Khuda-e-Hakeem ka

Hussain is yet, the tower of greatness,

Hussain's look is, all but sweetness,

Hussain is a lesson of amity, in its fullness,

Hussain is the testimony, of Adam's nobleness,

A unique model he is, of the supreme sacrifice,

Oh! What a grand selection of God, the Wise.

 

Ha'n wo Hussain Jis kaa abad Aashna Sabat

Kehta Hai Gaah Gaah Hakeemoo sey bhi yeh baat

Yaney duroon-e-pardaa-e-Sad Rang-e-Kainaat

Ek Karsaz Zehn hai, Ek zee Shaoor zaat

Sijdoo'n sey khainchta hai jo masjood kee taraf

Tanhaa jo ek ishara hai maabood kee taraf

He is Hussain, whose name shall live till eternity,

At times, he guides the wise men, with all solemnity,

That within the multi-colored dome of this universe,

There abides the Creator, the Conscious Being of ours,

With his bowings, he attracts the masses to the object of prayer,

A lone semblance he is, of the Diety of prayer.

 

Taaqat see shaei ko khaak mein jis ney mila diya

Taqtaa Ullatt key qasr-e-huqoomat ko dha diya

Jis ney hawa mein ruab-e-Imarat Urhaa diya

Thokar sey jis ney afsar-e-Shahi Gira diya

Is tarha jis sey Zulm Siyah Faam ho gaya

Lafz-e-yazeed dakhil-e-Dushnam ho gaya

He smashed the pride of power, reducing it to dust,

He tumbled the throne, crushing the ruler and his lust,

He shook the empire, undoing its pomp and pageantry,

He dealt a blow to the kingship and bureaucracy,

Thus, the rule of tyranny, was abased for ever,

And the word "Yazid", was debased for ever.

 

Pani sey teen roz huway jis key lab na tar

Teg-o-Tabr ko sompp diya jis ney ghar ka ghar

Jo mar gaya Zameer kee Izzat key nam par

Zilaat key Aastaan pey Jukaya magar na sar

Lee jis ney saans rishtey-e-Shahi ko Tor kar

Jis ney Kalai maut kee rakh dee maroar kar

For three days, he remained without water,

He had put his whole house, on spear and lancer,

He laid down his life, in conscience's fair name,

Bud had never yielded to the demand, full of shame,

Unemcumbered he was, when kingship he had quashed,

And the icy hands of death, he had smashed.

 

Har chand ahl-e-joer ney chaha yeh barhaa

Ho jaey mehaw yaad-e-Shaheedaan-e-Karbala

Baqi rahey na naam zameen par Hussain kaa

Laikin Kisi ka zoar Azizo Na Chal saka

Abbas-e-Namwar key lahu sey dhula huwa

Ab bhi Hussainiat ka alam hai khula huwa

Despite that many a tyrant, has attempted about,

That the memory of the martyrs of Karbala, be washed out,

And from the face of world, Hussain's name be effaced,

But to the ground, each such conspiracy is razed,

Dyed with the blood of Abbas is set,

The banner of Hussainism, is unfurled as yet.

 

Yeh subh-e-Inqilab kee jo aaj kal hai zoe

Yeh jo machal rahi hai Saba, Phatt rahi hai poe

Yeh jo Chirag-e-Zulm kee tharaa rahi hai loe

Dar parda yeh Hussain kee Anfaas kee hai roe

Haq key Chiray huway hain jo yeh Saaz Dosto

Yeh bhi isee jari kee hai Awaaz Dosto

The beam of the revolution morn, which is appearing,

The zephyr is dancing, the dawn is emerging,

Tyranny is but throbbingm its tail-end is quivering,

Underneath them, the self of Hussain is glimmering,

The tunes of righteousness, all around, my friends,

Are but the echos of the valiant, which resound, my friends.

 

SIXTAINS SELECTED FROM MARSIA

OF NAJM EFFENDI

Surat gar-e-Jalaalat-e-Islam Hai Hussain

Ek markaz-e-Rawabit-e-Aqwam hai Hussain

Fiqr-o-Nazar Mashiat-o-Elhaam hai Hussain

Mehboob-e-Ahl-e-Dard Bas Ek naam hai Hussain

Darya Mukhalefat key Charhai,aur Utar gaiy

Baqi raha yeh naam, hawadis guzr gaiy

Of the fair face of Islam, the embellisher is Hussain,

Of the unity of nations, the coherer is Hussain,

Hussain is the will of God, His revelation and vision,

On the lips of men of inspiration, Hussain is the name in repetition,

There indeed waxed and waned his opposition,

But his name lasted, despite many a revolution.

 

Insaaniat ko jis ney sanwara hai wo Hussain

Jo Husn-e-Maanawi kaa sahara hai wo Hussain

Jis ney Diloan mein dard ubara hai wo Hussain

Rohey bashar ko jis ney pukara hai wo Hussain

Awaaz jis kee dour key insaan taq gaee

Bijli see sameaa kee fazaa mein chamak gaee

To humanity, Hussain has undoubtedlty graced,

The real grandeur in life, Hussain has traced,

In every human heart, Hussain has created pain,

And has set free each human soul, from slavery's chain,

The echo of his voice, reached the most distant man,

Like a flash of light it was, on the acoustic span.

 

Khudaar zindagi kaa jo hami hai wo Hussain,

Izzat ki maut ka jo payami hai wo Hussain,

Jo Khaliq-e-shaoor-r-awami hai wo Hussain,

Har qoum kee nazar mein girami hai wo Hussain,

Waqif nahee bashar jo payambar key naam sey

Manoos hain Hussain Alai-his-salaam sey

Of noble and virtuous life, Hussain is an exponent,

Of an honourable death, Hussain is the champion, most fervent,

Of the mass consciousness, Hussain is the creator, most notable,

In all clans and tribes, Hussain is a name, all venerable,

One who is yet ignorant, of the Holy Messenger,

With the name of Hussain, he is indeed familiar.

 

Sometimes, the thought process of processing a pic can be pretty interesting. Some things are pretty straightforward; but others can take some serious contemplation. For me, this picture is a prime example of that complicated thinking. Initially, I wanted to go b&w with this. I didn't even attempt working with the color version at all. The area with the sign was pretty overexposed, and there weren't really any great colors that I wanted to emphasize. But after a while, the b&w version just wasn't jivin' with me too much.

 

I eventually went to one of my LR presets that messes with the tones a bit. So with a "little" more work, I got the picture how I wanted it. But just for kicks (and because I had stopped working on this quite some time ago; and forgot I tried b&w), I tried the b&w look again. This time, I instantly saw that it wouldn't work.

 

But I think that I finally realized what was going on (this is the more "complicated" part). In b&w, the elements in this shot weren't cohering. My eye would go to the cookware, and never really to the sign. But the red really grabs my attention in this version, without being too dominant to where I never focus on the subject of the cookware. Now, all the elements play a little more nicely.

 

Yak & Yeti

Asia

Disney's Animal Kingdom

Walt Disney World, FL

 

Be sure to check out the Post Processing episode of the iso5571 podcast. Congrats on a year worth of episodes, you guys!!! ;)

 

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a duration of sound poetry & similaria

edited & etceteraed by jwcurry for the combined auditoria of

jwcurry Alastair Larwill Georgia Mathewson Brian Pirie

& special guest Gary Barwin

at the Niagara Artists Centre, 7:3o PM 19 october 2o12

354 Saint Paul Street, Saint Catharines

__________________________________________________

 

part 1

 

1. The Multiples, Steve McCaffery (Canada, 1981); source: transcription by Rob Read (Canada, 2o11?) from a recording by McCaffery. a multiplicity of mispronuncimicated masticatiums of eaneming; a study in contrasts between what you seam to be hearing & what you here are seeming to be. readers: curry, Mathewson

 

2. SIX-FOUR, Alastair Larwill (Canada, 2o1o); source: unpublished manuscript. accumulative disintegrational polysyllabicism formulated as an audio illustration in a discussion of articulational deliberateness with its dedicatee, Rob Read. full quartet

 

3. A Letterklankbeelden Poem, I.K.Bonset (Holland, 192o); source: Imagining Language An Anthology, edited by Steve McCaffery & Jed Rasula (2nd ed, Cambridge, USA, MIT Press, 2oo1). with line lengths mainly one letter long, Bonset – among other things a type designer – was simultaneously & independently investigating Raoul Hausmann's notion of optophonetics in basic typeforms & diacritics. terse. solo

 

4. " breath is ", bill bissett (Canada, 1966?); source: bill bissett, fires in th tempul OR TH JINX SHIP ND OTHR TRIPS (Vancouver, Very Stone House, 1966). one of bissett's concrete scattertexts, here divided into a duo demonstration of the logic inherent in his more radical field compositions. readers: curry, Larwill

 

5. Againful Deployment, jwcurry (Canada, 1981?); source: monograph (Ottawa, 1cent, 2oo1). a "sound poem for an assemblyline of voicings" spiralling outta the conch into yr cochnea. full quartet

 

6. " kp'erioUM lp'erioum ", Raoul Hausmann (Germany, 1918); source: IL COLPO DI GLOTTIDE la poesia come fisicità e materia, ed.Luciano Caruso, Henri Chopin, Laura Marcheschi & Steliomaria Martini (Firenze, Vallecchi, 198o). an excellent type specimen ofHaumann's optophonetic texts: "the poem is an act consisting of respiratory and auditive combinations, firmly tied to...duration", all conveyed through letters in space. solo

 

7. East Wind, bpNichol (Canada, 1979?); source: Four Horsemen, The Prose Tattoo (Milwaukee, Membrane Press, 1983). a gridtext deployed through overlaid extended breathlines, vowels blowing consonants all over the place. full quartet

 

8. anacyclic poem with two shouts DHARMATHOUGHTS STUPAWARDS, dom sylvester houédard (England, 1966); source: KROKLOK ⌗1 (ed.dom sylvester houédard, London, UK, Writers Forum, 1971). "for the artists protest committee for their call from losangeles for a tower against the war", an anagrammatic poem in 3 vowels & 4 consonants. readers: curry, Mathewson

 

9. WELTWEHE, August Stramm (Germany, 1914); source: KROKLOK ⌗3 (ed.dom sylvester houédard, London, Writers Forum, 1972). Stramm's scope is nothing less than cosmic in this, his most extreme narrative composed almost exclusively of verbs, seemingly fuelled & shaped by the battlefields he wrote in & the ciphers he wired his poems home through. solo (with apologies for hopelessly anglo pronuncimicatiums)

 

1o. KNOTS, jwcurry (Canada, 1982?); source: The (Almost) Instant Anthology '88, ed.Beverley Daurio, Daniel Jones & bpNichol (Toronto, Meet The Presses, 1988). excerpts from a "translation into concrete poetry" of R.D.Laing's lineated neuroses trackings, subsequently unreknotted & strung out as schizologue for 2 voices. readers: Larwill, Mathewson

 

11. roses that, d.a.levy (USA, 1966); source: UKANHAVYRFUCKINCITI BAK, ed.Robert J.Sigmund (Cleveland, Ghost Press, 1968). "for gene" (presumably Fowler), a cyclic concrete poem in linear form pumping ackackfire into the imperialism of politics/semantics. solo

 

12. SIZERZ, Steve McCaffery (Canada, 1976); source: THE CAPILANO REVIEW ⌗31 (ed.Steven Smith & Richard Truhlar, North Vancouver, 1984). severe elemental hocketing coupled with ordered layerings subjected to consistent randomizations. full quartet

 

13. CANZONE RUMORISTA cantata in coro sui teatri d'Italia in ANICCAM del 2000, Fortunato Depero (Italy, 1916?); source: as 3 above. Depero's optophonetic procedure is here more regularly regularly multilineated, one of but 2 of the texts thus far found from his suite of unknown size (more information on this fellow would be highly appreciated). solo

 

14. TOTEM ÉTRANGLÉ, Antonin Artaud (France, 1964?); source: KROKLOK ⌗2 (ed.dom sylvester houédard, London, Writers Forum, 1971), with reference to Antonin Artaud/trans.Helen Weaver, Selected Writings (New York, Farrar Straus And Groux, 1976). "For years I have had an idea of the consumption, the internal consummation of language by the unearthing of all manner of torpid and filthy necessities." (Artaud in a letter to Henri Parisot, 22 september 1945). 18 of these sound cycles excised (by Artaud) from elsewhere in his writings (Here Lies; Insanity and Black Magic; The Return of Artaud, Le Momo; To Have Done with the Judgement of God; Van Gogh, The Man Suicided by Society) & formally linked as a suite. full quartet

 

part 2

 

15. Calling The Vegetable Collected, jwcurry (Canada, 2oo8); source: monograph (2nd ed, Ottawa, 1cent, 2oo8). hocketed statements that build multiple syntactic paths as the fragments first cohere, then disintegrate. full quartet

 

16. AGATHA! WAKE UP! I'M CURED!, Richard Beland (Canada, 199-?); source: unpublished manuscript. Beland's language lines are as plastic as his visual lines, this short prose morphing from sense to sound to resense with every step. solo

 

17. Scraptures: 12th Sequence, bpNichol (Canada, 1967?); source: photocopy from TORONTO LIFE (issue # & editor unknown, Toronto, 1968). & on the 12th "day", humanity stuck its heads up from the muck & goo, took a look around in its state of ignorant grace, & knew but lustful fear. arrangement dedicated to Jan Svankmeyer. full quartet

 

18. A Little Valentine, Steve McCaffery (Canada, 1977); source: Steve McCaffery, research on the mouth (Toronto, Undrwhich Editions, 1978?), transcribed & arranged by jwcurry & Sheena Mordasiewicz (2o12). a trystcycle built for 2 interpenetrates itself to become a relentless rush toward simultaneous climax. readers: curry, Larwill

 

19. Pieces Of Stop, bpNichol (Canada, 1978); source: as 7 above. "for Greta Monach", an extremely literal approach to the score that casts the reversed expectations of its sound envelopes into stark relief. ull quartet

 

2o. DAS GROSSE LALULA, Christian Morgenstern (Germany, 189o?); source: as 8 above. one of Morgenstern's few ventures outside semanticism into "phonetic rhapsody", an entry in the Galgenleider cycle & one of the earliest poems acknowledged as constructed on purely sound principles (KROKLOK, the magazine dedicated to the documentation of sound poetry's history, takes its name from the poem's 1st 2 syllables). solo

 

21. THE MAN IN THE LOWER LEFT HAND CORNER OF THE PHOTOGRAPH, Mike Patton (USA, 1995); source: Mike Patton, ADULT THEMES for Voice (New York, Tzadik, 1996), transcribed by jwcurry (2oo7). a solo construction for voice & tape recorder, the transcription (& reading) attempts to semireplicate the extreme edits, abruptions & machine stresses of the collage original. solo

 

22. auf dem land, ernst jandl (Austria, 1968?); source: konkrete poesie deutschsprachige autoren, ed.eugen gomringer (reprint? Stuttgart, Philipp Reclam, 198o). an "utter zoo" octupletted & here arranged as simultaneous nouns'n'sounds. readers: curry, Larwill

 

23. sounds' favorite words, Paul Haines (Canada, 1986), as quoted in full in an extract from Haines' Jubilee; source: Paul Haines, Secret Carnival Workers (Toronto? H Pal Productions, 2oo7), with reference to Michel Contat's reading on Haines' DARN IT! (USA, American Clavé, 1994). hijacked as an interdiction of manysorts. Jubilee ends "Unrelatedly, there was a recital of whisk the morning of 17 July after a night the cats had raised hell on the front lawn, a group of robins fallen by the side of the hedge as though meeting on a street corner and – now headless to prove it – plumb run out of things to say, but still prettier representations of events than the sparrows the exact size of erasers stacked up with the heads on. // Which of course are words apart." solo

 

24. The Tibetan Memory Trick, traditional/arranged by Howard Kaylan, Ian Underwood & Mark Volman (USA, 1974); source: Flo & Eddie, ILLEGAL, IMMORAL AND FATTENING (Canadian pressing, Columbia Records Limited, 1975). everyone in the band gets put through this one for articulational, breathing & body memory development. spontaneously inserted between the 2 parts of 23 above. full quartet

 

25. THREE/FOUR: OF TIME, bp Nichol (Canada, 1985); source: 5e echanges internationaux de poesie contemporaine, ed.Julien Blaine (Tarascon, France, L'A.G.R.I.P.P.A., 1988). the 3rd in Nichol's TIME series "for the 4 Horsemen", this one targetting the structure of the waltz for vigorous interrogation. full quartet

 

26. IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, Frank Zappa (USA, 1964); source: Mothers Of Invention, FREAK OUT! (USA, Verve Records, 1965), transcribed & arranged by jwcurry (2oo7). a somewhat remented barberchopping routine that only seems to leave metre & tonality behind, part 2 of Help, I'm A Rock, featuring Georgia Mathewson as Suzy Creamcheese ("Suzy you were such a sweetie"). full quartet

 

27. BALLADS OF THE RESTLESS ARE, bpNichol (Canada, 1967?); source: monograph (2nd ed, Ottawa, Curvd H&z, 2oo6). "two versions/common source" of elemental theme & variations presented as comparative simultaneity in a "quartet for 2 voices". readers: curry, Larwill

 

28. Salmon River Soliloquy, David UU (Canada, 1973); source: David UU, High C (Toronto, Underwhich Editions, 1991). a rather straightforward poem siding with the fishes. solo

 

29. MUSHY PEAS, Steve McCaffery & bpNichol (England, 1978); source: Steve McCaffery & bpNichol, IN ENGLAND NOW THAT SPRING (Toronto, Aya Press, 1979). 6 pages of drawn optophonetics as visual ground for improvisation, tonight's take a "no-net" event. readers: curry, Larwill

 

3o. Sweet suite suet, ernst jandl (Austria, 197o?); source: STEREO HEADPHONES ⌗4 (ed.Nicholas Zurbrugg, Kersey, UK, 1971). the syllables of jandl's lyric poem trip in & out of step with receptibility, accruing a kind of polysemantic reality just this side of the pataphysical. solo

 

31. Oiesautal / Super-Bird-Song, Raoul Hausmann (France, 1918?) & Kurt Schwitters (England, 1946?), respectively; source: Raoul Hasmann & Kurt Schwitters, PIN and the story of PIN (London, UK, Gaberbocchus Press, 1962). brought together by the 1st world war & separated by the 2nd, both friends independently came to write short works based on birdsound. this interlineated arrangement by curry (2oo9?) is a step toward A Visit to the Aviary, a short suite of related material from various sources. readers: curry, Pirie

 

32. GLASS ON THE BAECH, Richard Truhlar (Canada, 1978?); source: Owen Sound, Beyond The Range (Toronto, Underwhich Editions, 198o), transcribed by curry from a trio (Michael Dean, Steven Smith, Richard Truhlar) recording at The Music Gallery in Toronto, 18 august 1979, with additional parts adapted from 2 manuscript scores courtesy of Truhlar. extended vocal waveforms with buried shards. full quintet with Gary Barwin

__________________________________________________

 

front cover: bpNichol, BALLADS OF THE RESTLESS ARE

rear cover: ernst jandl, auf dem land

 

with thanks to Gregory Betts, Jenny Kimmerly &, above all, the band

__________________________________________________

 

see also:

 

announcement by Natasha Pedros

 

photographs by Pearl Pirie:

Pirie/curry/Mathewson/Larwill

Mathewson/Larwill/curry/Pirie

Mathewson/Larwill/curry/Pirie

M/L/c/P It Can't Happen Here

M/L/c/P a brief pause with Suzy Creamcheese

Mathewson/Larwill/curry/Pirie/Barwin Glass On The Beach

   

Built in 1886, this Classical Revival-style house was originally built in the Queen Anne style and designed by Augustus Gauger for William Constans, a brewery supply merchant and owner of the firm of Constans and Schmidt, and his wife, Bertha Franckenberg Constans. The house was heavily renovated with Classical Revival elements in the 1920s, and saw further renovations in 1969. The house features a red brick exterior with limestone trim, a bracketed cornice, rusticated stone base, broken pediment over the porch, doric and ionic columns and pilasters, a matching carriage house, and a porte cohere on the side. The house is a contributing structure in the Historic Hill District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

The Equivalence of Self and Universe. Folio 6 from the Siddha Siddahanta Paddhati. âThe Muslim Artistâ (Bulaki), 1824 (Samvat 1881) Opaque watercolour and gold on paper; 122 x 46 cm. Mehrangarh Museum Trust, RJS 2378. Numbered 6 on recto. Sri siddha siddhanta paddhati of 1824 Entered in the dholiya storeroom. âWithin this body exist Mount Meru, the seven continents, alkes, oceans, mountains, plains, and the protectors of these plans. All beings embodied in the three worldsâ¦exist in the body together with all their activities. He who knows all this is a yogin. There is no doubt about this.â In the penultimate year of the twelve-year course of hatha yoga, a yogin becomes a siddha, a perfected being who achieves an equivalence of self and universe. With his eyes crossed in yogic meditation, this siddha experiences the bliss of enlightenment. His bodyâs expansive and fleshy contours incorporate a vast cosmos, numerous deities, and all manner of creation. Following the text of the Siddha Siddhanta Paddhati, the artist maps the universeâs fourteen principal worlds along the yogiâs limbs in a vertical hierarchy. Four heavens (including the siddha heaven) are located along his chest and head; three middle worlds are situated at his lower torso; and seven underworlds nestle within his feet and amid the folds of his orange dhoti. Seven additional worlds are placed along his shoulders. Semi-divine snake gods and parti-colour demons nestle in the crooks of his elbows. His thighs support all the worldâs forest, and his ribs, shoulders, and head bear the worldâs great mountains. The Nath siddha appears huge in contrast to the minutely rendered interior worlds-gleaming fortress-cities presided over by deities. Even his face becomes enormous: in a dramatic (and witty) inversion of scale, the sun and moon (the ha and tha of hatha yoga) become the Nathâs cheeks, the clouds his beard, and the mountains his ear hair. Representing the yogic insight is a paradoxical task. Nath doctrine maintains that the equivalence of self with universe is beyond the comprehension of ordinary individuals. Ultimate reality can be perceived only through the insight gained by the physical and mental transformations wrought by yogic practice. Indeed, the paintingâs multiple representational systems deny the beholder complete and simultaneous vision. White palace cities, with perspectival walls that create the paintingâs only areas of tangible depth, offer a transcendent vision of the worlds. But these birdâs-eye views, once grasped, are negated by the paintingâs emphatic planarity. The surfaceâs gleam, which was created by rubbing the verso of the painting with a stone to fuse the pigments, emphasizes the flatness of the paper support. Flatly painted deities, humans, and demons, rendered in crystalline detail, seamlessly cohere with the burnished surface. In turn, the yogiâs pearls rendered in high relief call into question the materiality of the deities tucked between its double strand. The image oscillates between surface and depth, between materiality and illusion. By allowing only fleeting apprehension, the painting situates the viewer as a an imperfect witness to the omniscience of yogic insight, but invokes the perfected yoginâs profound comprehension of the simultaneous coexistence of the Absolute and its myriad of emanations.

Tareekh dey rahi hai yeh awaaz dam ba dam

Dasht-e-sabat-o-Azm hai Dast-e-Bala-o-Gam

Sabr-e-Maseeh wa juraa't suqrat ki qasam

 

Is rah mea hai sirf ek insaan ka qadam

Jis kee rago'n mein Aatish-e-Badr-o-Hunain Hai

Us soorma ka isme girami Hussain Hai

History is making a repeated clarian call,

It's the wilderness of resoluteness, of woe and gall,

By the fortitude of Christ, by Socrates' valour,

This path is trodden alone, by a man of honour,

The man, tempered are whose veins, by the fire of Badr and Hunain,

He is the valiant being, his sweet name is Hussain.

Jo Saheb-e-Mizaj-e-Naboowat tha wo Hussain

Jo waris-e-zameer-e-Risalat tha wo Hussain

Jo Khalwati-e-Shahid-e-Qudrat tha wo Hussain

Jis kaa wojood fakhr-e-mashiat tha wo Hussain

Sanchay main dhalney key liye Kainaat ko

Jo tolta tha Nok-e-Mazaa' par hayat ko

Of the attributes of the Prophet, the perceiver was Hussain,

Of the holiness of the Prophet, the inheritor was Hussain,

Of the Secrets of Nature, an evidence was Hussain,

Of Providence, the best creature, in existence was Hussain,

For shaping out the universe, in the best of mould,

With the point of his eye-lash, he measured life's gold.

 

Jo Ek nishan-e-Tashna dhani tha wo Hussain

Geeti pey Arsh kee jo nishani tha wo Hussain

Jo Khuld ka Ameer-e-Jawani tha wo Hussain

Jo Ek san-e-jadeed ka bani tha wo Hussain

Jis ka Lahu Talatum-e-pinhaa'n liye huway

Har boond mein tha Nooh ka Toofan liye huway

Hussain was a lone symbol, of utter thirst,

Hussain was a Heavenly sign, on this very dust,

Hussain was the lord, of the youths of Paradise,

Hussain was the creator of an epoch, glorious and nice,

Into his blood, the commotion lay but calm,

And into each drop, there was Noah's storm.

 

Jo Karwan-e-Azm ka Rehbar tha wo Hussain

Khud Apney khoon kaa jo shanawar tha wo Hussain

Ek Deen-e-Tazaa ka jo payambar tha wo Hussain

Jo Karbala ka dawar-e-Mehshar tha wo Hussain

Jis kee nazar pey Shewa-e-Haq ka madar tha

Jo Rooh-e-Inqilab ka parwardigar tha

Of the men of resolution, Hussain was the leader,

Into the pool of his own blood, Hussain was the swimmer,

Of the revival faith, the messenger was Hussain,

Of Karbala's resurrecting day, the creator was Hussain,

In his approbation, lay the will of Providence,

Of the spirit of revolution, he was the main essence.

 

Ha'n ab bhi jo manara-e-Azmat Hai wo Hussain

Jis kee nigah marg-e-Adawat Hai wo Hussain

Ab bhi jo Mehwa-e-Dars-e-Mohabbat Hai wo Hussain

Aadam kee jo daleel-e-Sharafat hai wo Hussain

Wahid jo ek namoona hai zibh-e-Azeem Ka

Allah rey intekhab Khuda-e-Hakeem ka

Hussain is yet, the tower of greatness,

Hussain's look is, all but sweetness,

Hussain is a lesson of amity, in its fullness,

Hussain is the testimony, of Adam's nobleness,

A unique model he is, of the supreme sacrifice,

Oh! What a grand selection of God, the Wise.

 

Ha'n wo Hussain Jis kaa abad Aashna Sabat

Kehta Hai Gaah Gaah Hakeemoo sey bhi yeh baat

Yaney duroon-e-pardaa-e-Sad Rang-e-Kainaat

Ek Karsaz Zehn hai, Ek zee Shaoor zaat

Sijdoo'n sey khainchta hai jo masjood kee taraf

Tanhaa jo ek ishara hai maabood kee taraf

He is Hussain, whose name shall live till eternity,

At times, he guides the wise men, with all solemnity,

That within the multi-colored dome of this universe,

There abides the Creator, the Conscious Being of ours,

With his bowings, he attracts the masses to the object of prayer,

A lone semblance he is, of the Diety of prayer.

 

Taaqat see shaei ko khaak mein jis ney mila diya

Taqtaa Ullatt key qasr-e-huqoomat ko dha diya

Jis ney hawa mein ruab-e-Imarat Urhaa diya

Thokar sey jis ney afsar-e-Shahi Gira diya

Is tarha jis sey Zulm Siyah Faam ho gaya

Lafz-e-yazeed dakhil-e-Dushnam ho gaya

He smashed the pride of power, reducing it to dust,

He tumbled the throne, crushing the ruler and his lust,

He shook the empire, undoing its pomp and pageantry,

He dealt a blow to the kingship and bureaucracy,

Thus, the rule of tyranny, was abased for ever,

And the word "Yazid", was debased for ever.

 

Pani sey teen roz huway jis key lab na tar

Teg-o-Tabr ko sompp diya jis ney ghar ka ghar

Jo mar gaya Zameer kee Izzat key nam par

Zilaat key Aastaan pey Jukaya magar na sar

Lee jis ney saans rishtey-e-Shahi ko Tor kar

Jis ney Kalai maut kee rakh dee maroar kar

For three days, he remained without water,

He had put his whole house, on spear and lancer,

He laid down his life, in conscience's fair name,

Bud had never yielded to the demand, full of shame,

Unemcumbered he was, when kingship he had quashed,

And the icy hands of death, he had smashed.

 

Har chand ahl-e-joer ney chaha yeh barhaa

Ho jaey mehaw yaad-e-Shaheedaan-e-Karbala

Baqi rahey na naam zameen par Hussain kaa

Laikin Kisi ka zoar Azizo Na Chal saka

Abbas-e-Namwar key lahu sey dhula huwa

Ab bhi Hussainiat ka alam hai khula huwa

Despite that many a tyrant, has attempted about,

That the memory of the martyrs of Karbala, be washed out,

And from the face of world, Hussain's name be effaced,

But to the ground, each such conspiracy is razed,

Dyed with the blood of Abbas is set,

The banner of Hussainism, is unfurled as yet.

 

Yeh subh-e-Inqilab kee jo aaj kal hai zoe

Yeh jo machal rahi hai Saba, Phatt rahi hai poe

Yeh jo Chirag-e-Zulm kee tharaa rahi hai loe

Dar parda yeh Hussain kee Anfaas kee hai roe

Haq key Chiray huway hain jo yeh Saaz Dosto

Yeh bhi isee jari kee hai Awaaz Dosto

The beam of the revolution morn, which is appearing,

The zephyr is dancing, the dawn is emerging,

Tyranny is but throbbingm its tail-end is quivering,

Underneath them, the self of Hussain is glimmering,

The tunes of righteousness, all around, my friends,

Are but the echos of the valiant, which resound, my friends.

 

SIXTAINS SELECTED FROM MARSIA

OF NAJM EFFENDI

Surat gar-e-Jalaalat-e-Islam Hai Hussain

Ek markaz-e-Rawabit-e-Aqwam hai Hussain

Fiqr-o-Nazar Mashiat-o-Elhaam hai Hussain

Mehboob-e-Ahl-e-Dard Bas Ek naam hai Hussain

Darya Mukhalefat key Charhai,aur Utar gaiy

Baqi raha yeh naam, hawadis guzr gaiy

Of the fair face of Islam, the embellisher is Hussain,

Of the unity of nations, the coherer is Hussain,

Hussain is the will of God, His revelation and vision,

On the lips of men of inspiration, Hussain is the name in repetition,

There indeed waxed and waned his opposition,

But his name lasted, despite many a revolution.

 

Insaaniat ko jis ney sanwara hai wo Hussain

Jo Husn-e-Maanawi kaa sahara hai wo Hussain

Jis ney Diloan mein dard ubara hai wo Hussain

Rohey bashar ko jis ney pukara hai wo Hussain

Awaaz jis kee dour key insaan taq gaee

Bijli see sameaa kee fazaa mein chamak gaee

To humanity, Hussain has undoubtedlty graced,

The real grandeur in life, Hussain has traced,

In every human heart, Hussain has created pain,

And has set free each human soul, from slavery's chain,

The echo of his voice, reached the most distant man,

Like a flash of light it was, on the acoustic span.

 

Khudaar zindagi kaa jo hami hai wo Hussain,

Izzat ki maut ka jo payami hai wo Hussain,

Jo Khaliq-e-shaoor-r-awami hai wo Hussain,

Har qoum kee nazar mein girami hai wo Hussain,

Waqif nahee bashar jo payambar key naam sey

Manoos hain Hussain Alai-his-salaam sey

Of noble and virtuous life, Hussain is an exponent,

Of an honourable death, Hussain is the champion, most fervent,

Of the mass consciousness, Hussain is the creator, most notable,

In all clans and tribes, Hussain is a name, all venerable,

One who is yet ignorant, of the Holy Messenger,

With the name of Hussain, he is indeed familiar.

 

SIXTAINS SELECTED FROM MARSIA

OF SYED A'LEY RAZA MARHUM

Thaa jahan phir wahee'n quran ko ley aaye Hussain

 

Saj gaee jaey Muhammad key qareen jaey Hussain

Marzee-a-Haq sey muzayyan tho jo Eimaey Hussain

Mashal-e-Raah bana Naqsh-e-Kafe-paye Hussain

Taey Maslak-e-Islaam Dobara Chamka

Phir sey Insaan kee qismat kaa sitara Camka

Hussain restored the Qur'an, to its pristine position,

Not too distant from the place of Mohammad, was his position,

In consonance with the Divine will, was the very act of Hussain,

For mankind thus became a guide-line, the footprints of Hussain,

The fortune of Islam was, re-ascendant vigorously,

And the star of man's destiny, shone more brilliantly.

 

Kitnaa nazuk tha fareeza jo baja laey Hussain

Ta ba dil Halqaey Mazhab ko barhaa laey Hussain

Kalma-e-rasm key phanday sey churaa laey Hussain

Haq ko Nahaq kee milawat sey bacha laey Hussain

Naql ko Asl-e-Haqiqat mein jo khapney na diya

Dhong Islam-e-Majazee ka panapney na diya

How challenging was the task, which Hussain has completed,

To the beat of the heart, Hussain had Divinity stretched,

From the mechanical acknowledgement of faith, he made Islam free,

To adultrate the Wrong with the Right, Hussain allowed in no degree,

The spurious, he made to segregate with the original,

To the façade of false Islam, he jolted a blow eternal.

 

Haq mein Islam key Naana kee Tamanna they Hussain

Jo Beharhaal na ho kam wo bharosa they Hussain

Bap bhai key maqasid key Mohaiyaa they Hussain

Silsilay Dar Faraez kaa Tatimma they Hussain

Deen o Dunyaa kee Qiyadat ko alag kar key rahey

Badshahat ko Imamat sey Alag kar key rahey

For the survival of Islam, Hussain was the hope of his grand-father,

And the unflagging confidence, which indeed knew no falter,

Of the mission of his father and brother, Hussain was the fulfillment,

Of the duties and obligations, Hussain was a sheet and its supplement,

Between the spiritual and temporal lordship, a line he demarcated,

To Kingship from the Imamate, he most certainly separated.

 

Hussain Ek Idara hai, Ek Naam nahee

Husainiat ko Makani Hadoan sey kaam nahee

Hussainiat mein zamani koi maqam nahee

Yeh faiz who hai key tafreqq Subho-sham nahee

Dare-Hussain hai Insaan Nawazeeon key liye

Game-e-Hussain bana chara sazeeon key liye

Hussain is not a mere name, but an institution of merit,

To the confines of space, Hussainism has no limit,

Hussainism is in fact timeless,

It transcends all such barriers, it's all matchless,

His gates are ever open to humanity, for its betterment,

The mournings for Hussain are for man's cure and treatment.

 

SIXTAINS SELECTED FROM MARSIA

OF NASIM AMROHVI

Hussain paikar-e-Insaniyat kee jaan too hai,

Zameen-e-Sabr-o-Tahammul kaa Aasmaan too hai,

Na sirf deen-e-muhammad kee Izzo-e-Shan too hai,

Rahe-e-Hayat mein Salar-e-Kaarwaan too hai,

Jahan ko Khawab-e-fana sey jagaa diya too ney

Baqa key wastey marnaa sikha diya too ney

Hussain, thou art the inner soul, of the best of humanity,

Of the land of patience and fortitude, thou art the highest canopy,

Not only the religion of Mohammad, thou art the upholder,

But of the whole caravan of life, thou art the standard-bearer,

From the deadening sleep, awakened the world hast thou,

How to die for life, taught a lesson hast thou,

 

To hee hai zulm key panjay ko morhney wala,

Yazeediat kaa sare-nahas tornney wala,

Darindagan-e-Bala ko Janjhorney wala,

Musibataun kee kalai marorney wala

Pahaar sey bhi sabat-e-qadam ziyada tha

Dil-e-Hussain Thaa, Allah kaa Irada tha

Of the cruel clutches of tyranny, thou art the breaker,

Of the brutal force of Yazidism, thou art the shatterer,

Of all the evils and villainies, thou art the slayer,

Of the worst of adversities, thou art the challenger,

For more than the mass of mountain, was indeed the resolution

It was Hussain's heart, or the undying Divine determination.

 

Zabaan sey kartey ho dawa Hussainiat ka Agar

Dikhao kuch to Hussain-e-Shaheed key Johar

Sajo who asleha jin par fida ho Fath-o-Zafar

Sabat-e-Azm kee talwar lo, Haya kee Sipar

Jo Haidery ho to Himmat karo, Dilair bano

Barho, Na barh key hatoa, Barthey Jao, Shair bano

If you claim yourself to be Hussain's follower,

Show at least, some of the martyr's feats of valour,

Arm yourself with such weapons, which are victory's pride,

Let the sword of will and shield of modesty be by your side,

Should you be a supporter of Haider, be courageous and daring,

Advance, not to retreat, go on, be a lion raging.

 

SIXTAINS SELECTED FROM MARSIA

OF FAIZ AHMED FAIZ

 

Raat aaee hai Shabbir pey yalgaar-e-bala hai

Sathi na koi Yar na gamkhawr raha hai

Monis hai to Ek dard kee Gangore Ghata hai

Musfaq hai to Ek Dil key Dharakney kee sada hai

Tanhai kee, gurbat kee, pareshani kee shab hai

Yeh Khana-e-Shabbir kee Wirani kee shab hai

 

Night has set in, manifold miseries have Shabbir chained,

No friend, no companion and no well-wisher has remained,

The dark clouds of pain and suffering, are but his soother,

And the throb of his wounded heart, is the only comforter,

It's the night of a lonely being, stranger, stranded and molested,

It's the night of Shabbir's house, which is desolate and devastated.

 

Dushman kee sipah khawab mein madhosh pari thee

Pal bhar ko kisi kee na idhar Ankh lagi thee

Har ek ghari Aaj qiyamat kee ghari thee

Yeh Raat bhot Aal-e-Mohammad pey karhi thee

Reh reh key bukaa Ahl-e-Haram kartey they Aisay

Tham tham key Diya Aakri shab jalta hai jaisay

Fast Asleep, the enemy soldiers were senselessly lying,

But this side, non could even wink in a situation trying,

This day, each and every moment was mortifying,

To the progeny of the Holy Prophet, this night was most terrifying,

The house-folks bewailed so, at times but helplessly,

As if the snuffed-out candle, flickers at the night-end slowly.

 

Ek ghoshay mein Un Sokhta Samanoan key Salaar,

Un Khak basar, Khaknuma Weeranaoun key Sardaar,

Tasna lab-o-Darmanada-o-Majboor-o-Dil-Figaar,

Is shaan sey bhaithay they Shah-e-Lashkar-e-Ahraar,

Masnad thi, na khilaat thi, na khuddam kharaey they,,

Haa tan pey jidhar dekhyee, So Zakham Sajay they

In a nook there was, the Commander of the deprived creatures,

The Chief of those uprooted and molested creatures,

Broken-hearted, exhausted, helpless and thirsty,

The Leader was sitting but with great dignity,

Neither was royal cushion, nor robe, nor were the attendants standing,

Multiple wounds were on his body, blood from each was oozing.

 

QUATRAIN OF KHWAJA MOINUDDIN CHISTI

Shah hast Hussain, Badshah hast Hussain

Deen hast Hussain, Deen Panah hast Hussain

Sardad na dad dast, dar dast-e-yazeed,

Haqaa key binaey La ila hast Hussain

It's Hussain the Prince, it's Hussain the king,

He is Faith, and Faith's Defender most daring,

He preferred death to Yazid's allegiance,

With his blood, Islam has verily been living.

 

ARABIC MERSIA BY HAZRAT ZAINAB A.S.

When the house-folks of the Prophet were released from the captivity of Yazid, Hinda invited them to her palace. It was therefore, the first congregation which was held at no other place but at the house of Yazid himself. Hazrat Zainab recited there the most moving mersia. The whole mersia is still extant in Bihar-ul-Anwa'r from which are extracted the following few couplets:

Tamassuk bil kitaab wa min Talaho

Fa ahlul bait-e-hum Ahl-ul-Kitabe

O faithful ! follow the Book and the knowers of the Book,

None but the progeny of the Prophet are the possessors of the Book.

 

Imami wahidur Rahmanu Tiflan

Wa Aaman'a qaba'l Tasdeed-il-Khitaabe

My leader (Ali) acknowledged God at that age,

When one can hardly speak at that stage.

 

Aliyunn kaan Siddiq-al-Baraya

Aliyunn kaan Farooq-al-Azaabe

He was Ali, who was truthful and truth lover,

He was Ali, who between reward and sin was the distinguisher.

 

Shafiee fil Qiayama Einda Rabbi

Nabiun Wal Wasiyol Buturabe

On the Dooms Day before God, my interceder,

Are the Holy Prophet and Abu Turab, his successor.

 

Wa Fatimatol Batoolo wa Syeda man

Yukhalado Fi Jinane Ma-Shababe

My mother, Batool, is my interceder,

Hasan and Hussain who, of the youths of Paradise, are leader.

 

Alat Tafis Salaamo Wa Saakiniyaa

Wa Rohollahe Fi Tilkal Qibaabe

My compliments to Taf and its dweller,

May God bless these men of valour.

 

Mazajeo Fityattin Abdoi Afanamoo

Hajoodan Fil Gadafire Was Shaabe

Taf is the resting-place of youths who worshipped the Almighty,

And slept in the deserts and valleys eternally.

 

Faqad Nokeloo Elaa Janaat-e-Adenin

Wa Qad Aedhoon Naeema Minal Eiqabe

Gone are they now to the Paradise of Eden,

For the sufferings of this world, Heaven is retribution

 

Banaato Muhammadin Adhat Sabaya

Yusqan Maal Usaraa Wanehabe

What a pity ! the daughters of Mohammad were arrested,

Unvieled and disgraced were they, like a booty they were treated.

 

Ayukhelo Fil Faraate Alal Hussain

Wa qad Adhaa Munahaan Lil Kulaabe

The water of Eupherate, for Hussain was forbidden,

But even for the dogs, there was no objection.

 

Fali Qalbun Alaihey Zul Tehaabe

Wa Lee Jufnun Alaihey Zul Sikabe

Thus is my heart, for Hussain burning,

And tears keep constantly flowing.

 

ARABIC MERSIA BY HAZRAT UMME KulTHOOM A.S.

The following is the famous marsia of Hazrat Umme Kulthoom. It is famous for its pathos and power of rhetoric. When the looted caravan entered Madina and the dome of the mausoleum of the Holy Prophet was sighted, the progeny of the Prophet felt extremely restless. On that occasion, Umme Kulthoom recited her marsia. It is recorded on page 372 of the sixth volume of Nasikh-ul-Tawarikh. The following are a few couplets from the said marsia.

 

Madinate Jadena La Taqbelenaa

Fayal Hasaraate Wal Ahzaan-e-Jaienaa

O Madina of our grand-father!, let us not be accepted,

For we have come back, being aggrieved and afflicted.

 

Alaa Akbiro Rasool Allahe Fiyona

Be anna qad fujaina Fi Abinaa

And tell about us, the Holy Prophet, our grand-father,

That we were shocked for the loss of our father.

 

Wa Inna Rijalana Bitafe Sar'aa

Bila Roase Waqad wa majolenaa

Tell him that at Taf, our house-folks were slaughtered,

Severed were their heads, our children too were massacred.

 

Wa Akhbiro Jadana Anna Usirnaa

Wa Baadal Asriya Jadaan Subianaa

Convey to our grand-father, that we were arrested.

After that we were taken as prisoners, and were insulted.

 

Wa Rahtuka ya Rasool Allah Adhhoowa

Araya bilTufoofe Mulbinaa

O Prophet ! the bodies of your kins, are naked lying,

Looted are their raiments, in abject state they are lying.

 

Waqad Zabihul Hussaina Wa lam Yaraoo

Janabak yaa Rasool Allahe Feenaa

Hussain has been slain, by many a beast,

And none cared for our relationship with you the least.

 

Falow Nadharat Uyoonok LilUsaraa

Alaa Aftaabil Jamaale Muhamalinaa

Should you see, how the prisoners were maltreated,

On the bare backs of the camels, we were seated.

 

Rasool Allahe bades Sawna Saarat

Uyoonun Naase-e-Naderattun Elaina

You were our greatest benefactor and saviour,

But soon after you, the enemies made us victims of torture.

 

Afatimo Low Nazarte Elaas Sabaaya

Binaateka Fil bilade Mushtetianaa

O fatima ! should you see how your daughters were assailed,

And were dragged from town to town unveiled.

 

Kharajnaa minke be lahleena Jamaan

Rajaanaa laa Rijaal Wa la Nabinaa

When we parted thee, our house was full of men,

Now that we have returned, lost our children and men.

 

Wa Nahno Banate Yaseena Wa Taha

Wa Nahnul Baqiyaato Ala Abeena

Of Yasin and Ta'ha, we are the daughters,

We are lamenting the death, of our father and brothers.

 

Wa Nahnot Taheraato Balaa Khafaaeen

Wa Nahnol Mukhlesoonal Mustafoona

We are verily the women, pious and purified,

We are the blessed beings, exalted and sanctified.

 

Fabaadhum Alaa Dunyaa Turaabun

Fakaasal Maute Fihaa Qad Suqainaa

After the martyrs of Karbala, this world is all vile,

For this very world, we were made to drink venom and bile.

 

After having reached Madina, Imam Zainul-A'bedin asked Bashir ibne Jazlam, the care-taker, to announce the arrival of progeny of the Holy Prophet in Madina. Bashir went straightway to the Mosque of the Holy Prophet and read aloud the following couplets:

Yaa Aahl Yathriba la Muqaam lakum baha

Qutelal Hussain Faar Mueya Midraaru

O People of Yathrab! This is no place for habitation

Hussain is slain, tearful are my eyes in lamentation.

 

Aljismu minho bekarbala Mudhirajuun

Walraaso minho Alaal Qanate Yudaru

His body lay, smeared with his blood, at Karbala,

And his head was held on a spear, alas ! how cruel ! ah !

 

English Translations of the poetry by S.G. Abbas, Department of English, Jamia-e-Millia college, Malir, Karachi, Pakistan [ Extracted from the book "The Immortal Poetry & Mir Anis by S.G.Abbas - A majlis-e-milli publication of Oct-1983 ]

 

The development of the typical Chinese garden with its full yin-yang symbolism was essentially Taoist in origin. The Han Emperors had earlier created vast artificial landscapes or parks with mountains, ravines, forests, rivers, lakes, and open spaces to provide a habitat for hordes of game for hunting, but during the time of the Six Dynasties and the T’ang, when Taoism prevailed, there developed the quiet intimacy of the Taoist garden, intended to reflect heaven on earth. It became a symbol of Paradise where all life was protected and sheltered. The park had been given over to the grandiose, the artificial, extravagant, and luxurious, to the hunter and aggressor; the Taoist garden was a place of naturalness and simplicity, a haven for the sage, scholar, and nature lover. Both landscape painting and garden-making owe their development to the Taoist philosophers who derived their inspiration from Nature as the Mother of All Things, the womb of life, eternal renewal, with her rhythms and moods. What was said of the painting of a landscape applied equally to the creation of a garden: “Chinese painters intuitively felt these same forms to be the visible, material manifestations of a higher all-embracing Reality; the Word made—not flesh—but Living Nature.” Or: “The Sages cherish the Tao within them, while they respond to the objective world.… As to landscapes, they both have material existence and reach to the realms of the Spirit.… The virtuous follow the Tao by spiritual insight and the wise take the same approach. Landscapes capture the Tao by their forms and the virtuous take pleasure in them. Is this not almost the same thing?… The Divine Spirit is infinite, yet it dwells in forms and inspires likeness, and thus truth enters into forms and signs. But while landscapes portrayed the vastness and grandeur of Nature, the garden revealed her intimate aspect. All forms of art are the outward and visible expression of Ch’i, the Cosmic Breath or Energy, with which all creation must be in accord, whether it be painting, poetry, music, or the creation of a garden. Indeed, all these arts developed side by side, for the Chinese scholar was expected to be capable of interpreting the same inspiration in all three arts together and the place of both their inspiration and expression was most usually the garden, this term being applied also to the rural retreat of a sage or hermit where in some remote and beautiful scenery a hut had been built and round it trees planted. In a well-designed garden it should be difficult to distinguish between the work of man and Nature. One should “borrow scenery from Nature” and the ideal place was “among trees in the mountains.” Wherever it was, the garden was a place of quiet, meditation, and communion with Nature, whether in wild scenery beside a waterfall, or a trickling stream, or in a bamboo grove, or the courtyard of a city dwelling. The garden is “the natural home of man” and house and garden were situated according to feng-shui (wind and water) influences in harmony with the currents of Ch’i; these were held in balance in both the house and garden, as in Nature, by the yin-yang forces. The yin lunar and yang solar powers were represented by the yin valleys and waters and the yang mountains and sky with all their endless yang and yin qualities such as sunshine and shadow, height and depth, heat and cold. However small the space utilized, the garden was never laid out as a flat expanse from which all could be viewed at once. This removal of any definite boundary made for succession, expansion, rhythm, and a sense of unlimited time and space. The garden, like Nature, is ever-changing, a place of light and shade with a life-breath (Ch’i yün) which is in harmony with the rhythms of the seasons and their contrasts in weather. Irregularity of line also suggests movement and life. “Everything that is ruled and symmetrical is alien to free nature.”[3] Or, as it has been said: “The awareness of change, the interaction symbolized by the yin-yang theory, has caused Chinese gardeners to seek irregular and unexpected features which appeal more to the imagination than to the reasoning faculty of the beholder. There were certain rules and principles for gardening, but these did not lead to any conformity. The basic elements were the same for landscape painting, shan shui or ‘mountain and water’” which might be imposing scenery or simply a pond and rocks. The smallest space could be converted into an effect of depth, infinite extension, and mysterious distance; groves, rockeries, bushes, winding paths, all helped to lure on beyond the immediate scene. As Rowley says of Western and Chinese art: “We restrict space to a single vista as though seen through an open door; they suggest the unlimited space of nature as though they had stepped through that open door.” The entire garden must be considered in association and relationship with all things in Nature. Chang Ch’ao says: “Planting flowers serves to invite butterflies, piling up rocks serves to invite the clouds, planting pine trees serves to invite the wind,… planting banana trees serves to invite the rain, and planting willow trees serves to invite the cicada.” These are all traditional symbolic associations. In the past in China, though man was the mediator between Heaven and Earth, he was not the measure of the universe; his place was simply to maintain the balance and harmony between the yin and the yang. It was Nature which was the Whole, and controlling cosmic power. The garden helped man in his work of maintaining harmony; it also had an ethical significance and influence. According to Ch’ien Lung it had “a refreshing effect upon the mind and regulated the feelings” preventing man from becoming “engrossed in sensual pleasures and losing strength of will.” Its pleasures were simple, natural, and spiritual. A Suchou poet wrote of the garden: “One should enter it in a peaceful and receptive mood; one should use one’s observation to note the plan and pattern of the garden, for the different parts have not been arbitrarily assembled, but carefully weighed against each other like the pairs of inscribed tablets placed in the pavilions,[6] and when one has thoroughly comprehended the tangible forms of objects one should endeavor to attain an inner communication with the soul of the garden and try to understand the mysterious forces governing the landscape and making it cohere.” The garden was for all seasons with their changing moods and colors, flowers and trees, so the pavilion and open gallery were necessary for enjoyment in the heat of summer or the cold of winter and became an integral part of the scenery. Even in winter one sat out in the pavilion to admire the beauties of the snow and to watch the budding of the almond and plum blossom. A portable brazier of glowing charcoal kept one warm and a large brazier was used to melt the snow to make tea. The garden was particularly evocative by moonlight and the new and full moons, times of spiritual power, had their own festivals, especially the festival of the mid-autumn moon. Other festivals were also celebrated in the pavilion or garden; the vernal equinox, observed on the twelfth day of the second month of the Chinese year, was known as the Birthday of the Flowers. Pavilions and galleries obviously had to blend with their surroundings. The Yüan Yeh says: “Buildings should be placed so as to harmonize with the natural formation of the ground.” When pavilions were connected by galleries these followed the rise and fall and curves of the land or winding of the waters which were often crossed by bridges, bringing in all the symbolism of the crossing of the waters, of transition, of communication between one realm or plane and another, as well as of man as mediator, occupying the central position between the great powers. Added beauty and symbolism was introduced in the “moon bridge,” a lovely half-circle which when reflected in the clear water below formed the perfect circle of the full moon. Roofs were curved and painted and the lattice work of the balustrades was lacquered and painted in harmonizing and symbolic colors. Harmony and proportion had to be maintained but symmetry was alien to Nature, thus the garden contained no such thing as clipped lawns or hedges or stiff geometrically designed flower beds, or flowers marshaled in rows or patterns. And “landscaping” had to absorb buildings and, like planted trees, make them look as if they had grown there. “One erects a pavilion where the view opens and plants flowers that smile in the face of the spring breeze.”[7] It was a place for both relaxation and active enjoyment, for solitary meditation and study, or for convivial gatherings for friends to meet and drink tea or wine or take al fresco meals. There they composed poetry and music, painted, practiced calligraphy or discussed philosophy. One amusement was to compose a poem in the time that it took a floating wine cup and saucer to drift from one end to the other on a meandering water-course set in the floor of the pavilion. A poet failing to complete his poem in the time had to catch and empty the cup. These water-courses could also be constructed in symbolic forms such as the swastika, or the cross-form of the Chinese character for the number ten, or in the shape of a lotus or open flower. Sometimes the water tumbled over small waterfalls or rocks. Pavilions were given names such as the Pavilion of the Hanging Rainbow, the Fragrance of the Lotus, the Secret Clouds, the Eight Harmonious Tones, Invitation, or Contemplation, of the Moon, Welcoming Spring, Pleasant Coolness, and so on. In some gardens there were Halls of the Moon; these were constructed in the shape of a hemisphere, the vaulted ceiling painted to represent the nocturnal sky with innumerable small windows of colored glass depicting the moon and stars. The total effect was one of the subdued light of a summer’s night. Sometimes the floor was planted with flowers, but more usually it contained running water, the moon and water being closely allied: “The moon washes its soul in the clear waters,” but although moon and waters are both yin water is symbolically related to the sun since the waters catch and reflect back the sun’s light, the yang. These halls could be large enough for holding banquets or of a smallness suitable for intimate sitting about in conversation or listening to music and poetry. Here, in the garden, where heaven and earth meet, music and poetry become the natural form of the expression of harmony. While the pavilion was built in and for the garden and was open to it, this breaking down of the distinction between in and out of doors applied also to the dwelling house which was not only sited for feng-shui but for fitting as naturally as possible into the scenery and giving access so immediately to the garden that there seemed no dividing line. Doors either did not exist or were left open. (Socially, closed doors were not considered courteous since they implied exclusion, while the open door symbolized the welcome extended by the essentially outgoing Chinese temperament with its spontaneous and natural relationships developed over the ages in the highly socialized life of a large family). Doors were often only a means of enhancing a view into the garden or to the scenery beyond, such as the moon door, a beautifully placed circle framing some special outlook. Not only was every aspect used to its full natural advantage but “if one can take advantage of a neighbor’s view one should not cut off the communication, for such a ‘borrowed prospect’ is very acceptable.” The house opened on to the garden and the garden came into the house; rooms opened on to the courtyards where flowering trees grew and ferns and flowers fringed a central pool, usually with golden carp swimming in it, for the garden was a place for animal and bird life also. Indeed, animals and plants were not considered the only ‘living’ things; everything shares in the cosmic power and mountains and rivers also ‘live.’ Nor was it at all unusual for the house to go out into the garden, for the lover of nature would move a bed out of doors, beside some special tree, shrub, or flower which was coming into bloom, so that no stage of its development and beauty would be lost; or one would sit up all night to enjoy the effect of the moonlight. “The moonlight lies like glittering water over the countryside. The wind sighs in the trees and gently touches the lute and the book that lie on the couch. The dark rippled mirror of the water swallows the half-moon. When day dawns one is awakened by the fresh breeze; it reaches the bed and all the dust of the world is blown out of one’s mind.” The garden was not, however, merely aesthetic but creative and a reminder of, and contact with, the creative forces and the great cycle of the seasons, birth, maturity, decay, death and rebirth. The merging of the native Taoism with imported Buddhism in Ch’an, or Zen, carried on the tradition of the intimate relationship between man and Nature. Ch’an Buddhism and gardens were two facets of Chinese inspiration which were adopted and carried on by the Japanese, but in later decadent times the original symbolism of the garden as a reflection of Paradise was lost and gardens became mere pleasure grounds, except where attached to monasteries in which much of the symbolism was taken over and where the association with meditation remained. In those gardens of effete times artificial extravagances crept in; windows were made in shapes which bore no relationship to symbols, such as teapots, animals, vases, and fans, even if some of these forms had, in fact, a symbolic content. But these aberrations were stigmatized by the Yüan Yeh as “stupid and vulgar” and “intelligent people should be careful in such matters.” (Shades of plastic cranes and gnomes!) The garden was a reflection of the macrocosm and embodied all the yin-yang dualisms projected in manifestation. Mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, were all represented. As Cheng Pan ch’iao said: “The enjoyment of life should come from a view regarding the universe as a garden… so that all beings live according to their nature and great indeed is such happiness.” The importance of water in the Chinese garden was not only due to yin-yang symbolism but to the wide significance of water itself as, next to the Dragon, the greatest Taoist symbol. It is strength in weakness, fluidity, adaptability, coolness of judgment, gentle persuasion, and passionlessness. While mountains and rocks are the bones of the body and the earth its flesh, rivers and streams are the arteries and blood, life-giver and fertilizer. Flowing water and still water symbolized movement and repose and the complementary opposites, and water-worn stones represented the interaction of the soft and the hard. Still water also takes on all the symbolism of the mirror. Water could be made by forming lakes and rivers in the earth excavated for making mountains, though mountains were most frequently represented by rocks, hollow and weather-worn, fretted out by the restless sea or the elements or formed from the strange shapes of petrified trees. These rocks were carefully selected for their color, texture, grain, and shape; some were upright and towering, others, larger at the top than at the base, gave the effect of disappearing into the clouds, others, lying down, took fantastic animal shapes, some gave out a note when struck, others were mute. Sometimes the rocks formed grottoes, but whatever the shape they always appeared as natural to the setting and were as near to the form of wild mountain crags as possible, giving the impression of Nature, untamed and capricious. (In this “naturalness” it must be remarked that the mountains of China in the Yangtze gorges, the far West, and the Southern provinces have been worked by nature herself into fantastic and sometimes grotesque shapes.) “Try to make your mountains resemble real mountains. Follow Nature’s plan” but “do not forget they have to be built by human hands.” Symbolically, the mountain is of course the world axis, but in the Chinese garden it also represented the yang power in Nature with the waters as the yin; the “mountain” is traditionally placed in the middle of a lake or pond, the rock being the stable and eternal, the water the flowing and temporal. This mountain-and-water (shan shui) symbolism also obtains in landscape painting. The rock and the shadow it casts are also yang and yin. Rocks are “silent, unmovable, and detached from life, like refined scholars.” Their ruggedness also suggests the challenging and dangerous element in the mountains and in life. In larger gardens the mountains were sufficiently high for the formation of small valleys and dales, with winging streams opening out into lakes on which boat journeys could be taken and where the water could be spanned by bridges. Sometimes a series of islands or rocks were so connected. Tunnels in the rocks gave the same effect and carried the same symbolism as bridges in passing from one world to another. But “even a little mountain may give rise to many effects… a small stone may evoke many feelings.”[11] Shen Fu says: “In the designing of a rockery or the training of flower trees one should try to show the small in the large and the large in the small and provide for the real in the unreal and the unreal in the real. One reveals and conceals alternately, making it sometimes apparent and sometimes hidden.” Both the yang mountain and the yin tree are axial and so represent stability and balance between the two great powers; they also offer a line of communication for man between the celestial yang forces coming down to earth and the earthly yin forces reaching up to heaven, with man again as central and responsible for the maintenance of balance and harmony in responding equally to the yin and yang powers. Trees were an essential feature of both the domestic and hermitage garden, particularly the latter where they were often the only addition made by man to the natural scenery and their variety was almost as important as the trees themselves. While all trees are beautiful and symbolize the feminine power, some were especially noted for their yin-yang qualities. Though yin as a tree, the pine and cedar express yang masculine dignity and rigidity in contrast to the feminine gracefulness, pliability, and charm of the willow, both these trees were considered necessary to maintain the yin-yang harmony. Dog scientist in a desert of stone, as he dreams, we know see through the wall ....

Chinese scholar's rocksScholar's rock, 11th century

Chinese scholars' rocks (Chinese: 供石; pinyin: gōngshí), also known as scholar stones or viewing stones, are small naturally occurring or shaped rocks which are traditionally appreciated by Chinese scholars. Scholars rocks can be any color; and contrasting colors are not uncommon. The size of the stone can also be quite varied: scholars rocks can weigh either hundreds of pounds or less than one pound. The term also identifies stones which are placed in traditional Chinese gardens. In the Tang dynasty, a set of four important qualities for the rocks were recognized. They are: thinness (shou), openness (tou), perforations (lou), and wrinkling (zhou). Chinese scholar's rocks influenced the development of Korean suseok and Japanese suiseki. Origin The origin of the stone is a notable feature. Lingbi stone feom Anhui. Ming Dynasty, 15th century Lingbi stone (Lingbishi) from Lingbi, Anhui province, limestone Taihu stone (Taihushi) from Lake Tai, Jiangsu province, limestone Yingde stone (Yingshi or Yingdeshi) from Yingde, Guangdong province, limestone Evaluation The evaluation of a scholar's rock identifies subtlety of color, shape, markings, surface, and sound. The overall array of qualities which are prized include awkwardness or overhanging asymmetry resonance or ringing when struck representation or resemblance to landscape or figure texture.

"…the power of cohesion…the teeth of the tough machine…just try to act like it…and feel the strength…" (amal shehab)

「晃│影－史帝夫 ‧ 麥柯里個展」

’S WANDERFUL│Making Pictures－Steve McCurry Solo Exhibition

 

2018/02/24-2018/05/06

 

臺北當代藝術館 MOCA Taipei

 

策展人：陳昌仁／Leo Chanjen Chen

 

攝影在數位年代的普及已經凌駕電影之上，儼然成為最重要的藝術了。如何學習影像思考、判斷與操作愈形重要。華語世界首度舉辦麥柯里個人攝影展因而有著雙重意義：一方面讓臺灣與全球攝影藝術語境對話接軌；另一方面重新定位麥柯里攝影與當代藝術的關係。展覽名稱「晃影 ─’S Wanderful | Making Pictures」以麥氏漫遊世界拍照為意象，強調他喜歡東晃西晃，即興捕捉人性的深層意義。英文標題結合好奇漫遊(wander)與驚異奇觀(wonder) – 亦即無奇不遊(no wander no wonder)，並隱含百老匯蓋希文的(Gershwin)名曲「’S Wonderful」來指涉攝影中的音樂性。

 

麥柯里攝影感動人心，成名作《阿富汗少女》召喚人們加入義工去幫助難民，影響深遠。好照片除了過目難忘，賦與生命軌跡以形象之外，並形塑記憶結構，經典作品甚至能以影像表達歷史縱深與當代關連。麥氏跨越許多文化與世代，從攝影記者到以影像說故事，從膠片到數位，不變的是他對人性本質行為之捕捉與呈現。他說肖相：「要有情感，要說出其人特質，要不同而難忘，更要表現出人性的共相」。不啻是美學判斷(sensus communis)哲學家康德的代言攝影師。麥氏人物攝影銳利地凝視著你，彷彿來自亙古宇宙角落的眼神(sub specie aeternitatis)， 並充盈著巴特(Barthes)強調的刺點(Punctum)，亦即感受每張照片無法控制的關鍵。弗立得(Fried)攝影新論融合影像的劇場性(Theatricality)與自足性(Absorption)，將無意識的情感刺點與有意識的表演安排結合並置，而麥氏攝影已先行多年了。

 

本展以影像之取像(making picture)，成像(rendering image)及in/印象(innervating impression) 三階段為軸，設計包含12件裝置藝術的展覽空間，探求、解答並提出更多攝影藝術與哲學問題。例如：攝影的本質是什麼？攝影藝術史的理論與實踐進程對當代創作的啓發為何？攝影藝術如何能提昇全民美感教育並培養創造力？期待「晃影」觀展後能顯其所以然，提高視覺思考及美感判斷力,那麼我們對影像藝術創新的展望就不僅始於漫遊。電影「迷魂記/Vertigo」中詹姆斯史都華搭訕金露華，約她一起漫無目的地晃晃，金回答：「一個人會去漫遊晃晃，兩個人一起就會去某個地方了(One wanders, two are always going somewhere) 。」 有麥柯里同行，我們會比較有方向感要往哪裡晃去晃來。

 

’S WANDERFUL│MAKING PICTURES ─ Steve McCurry Solo Exhibition

 

Curator: Leo Chanjen Chen

 

About the Exhibition

The ubiquity and democratization of photography in digital era has elevated its position above cinema, making it “the most important art”, which is why it is increasingly imperative to learn how to think, analyze, and make images to communicate. Hence the significances of the first Steve McCurry solo photography exhibition in Chinese-speaking worlds are two-fold: on the one hand, the McCurry at MOCA, Taipei exhibition connects and engages Taiwan to the discourses of global photography art, on the other hand, the exhibition intervenes, reconsiders and repositions the relationship between McCurry’s photography and contemporary art. Title of the exhibition, ’S Wanderful | Making Pictures, refers to McCurry’s photo journeys around the world, highlighting his fondness for wandering and the profound meanings behind his serendipitous capturing of humanity. The title coinage combines “wander” and “wonder”, suggesting a notion of “no wander no wonder”, while also alludes to the musicality embodied in photography by referencing classic Broadway song, “’S Wonderful”, composed by George Gershwin.

 

McCurry’s photography touches hearts and moves people, his iconic Afghan Girl has inspired people to volunteer and join refugee relief forces, and its impacts are far-reaching and continue to resonate. Memorable photographs impress upon you with indelible imprints of beauty, visualize human experiences by giving life forms, and structuring memories; some iconic works even convey layers of historical depths and contemporary connectedness. McCurry traverses space and time as he transcends different cultures and generations, from a photojournalist to an artist telling stories through images, from the medium of film to the digital. What remains unchanged is how he captures and makes visible human nature and behaviors in poesis. McCurry believes that a portrait should have emotions, tell of the person’s notable features, it must be different, unique and unforgettable, and yet, above all, it must also showcase the universality of humanity. In that regard, McCurry’s photographic aesthetics not only embody philosopher Kant’s aesthetic judgment - sensus communis, the individual sensibility that communicates with all mankind, but also makes him a Kantian photographer par excellence. McCurry’s portraits gaze sharply at you, with looks that seem to come from corners of the universe, transport you through perspectives of eternity - sub specie aeternitatis. Full of Barthesian punctum, the points that trigger involuntary reaction in experiencing each photograph.

 

McCurry’s photography has been exemplifying for decades what art critic Michael Fried tried to theorize, to integrate the absorption and theatricality in photography that juxtapose and combine unconscious emotional pathos with conscious performative ethos.

This exhibition consists of three cohering themes about photography: “Making picture”, “Rendering image”, and “Innervating impression”. Twelve installation artworks extend the exhibition space to explore, answer, and challenge issues of photography, art and philosophy, including: What is the essence and sine qua non of photography? What inspires contemporary art that transpires theories and practices in the art history of photography? How would the art of photography elevate aesthetic education and foster creativity? It is our aspiration that McCurry’s pictures in ’S Wanderful | Making Pictures, would make some of the answers and more of the questions apparent while nudging in visual thinking and aesthetic judgment as habit. Through the process of making photography art, our prospectus for visual art will expand beyond the initiating wander. In the movie Vertigo, James Stewart asks Kim Novak to wander together. Novak replies: “One wanders, two are always going somewhere.” Accompanied by McCurry, we would have a better sense of direction for where to wander.

「晃│影－史帝夫 ‧ 麥柯里個展」

’S WANDERFUL│Making Pictures－Steve McCurry Solo Exhibition

 

2018/02/24-2018/05/06

 

臺北當代藝術館 MOCA Taipei

 

策展人：陳昌仁／Leo Chanjen Chen

 

攝影在數位年代的普及已經凌駕電影之上，儼然成為最重要的藝術了。如何學習影像思考、判斷與操作愈形重要。華語世界首度舉辦麥柯里個人攝影展因而有著雙重意義：一方面讓臺灣與全球攝影藝術語境對話接軌；另一方面重新定位麥柯里攝影與當代藝術的關係。展覽名稱「晃影 ─’S Wanderful | Making Pictures」以麥氏漫遊世界拍照為意象，強調他喜歡東晃西晃，即興捕捉人性的深層意義。英文標題結合好奇漫遊(wander)與驚異奇觀(wonder) – 亦即無奇不遊(no wander no wonder)，並隱含百老匯蓋希文的(Gershwin)名曲「’S Wonderful」來指涉攝影中的音樂性。

 

麥柯里攝影感動人心，成名作《阿富汗少女》召喚人們加入義工去幫助難民，影響深遠。好照片除了過目難忘，賦與生命軌跡以形象之外，並形塑記憶結構，經典作品甚至能以影像表達歷史縱深與當代關連。麥氏跨越許多文化與世代，從攝影記者到以影像說故事，從膠片到數位，不變的是他對人性本質行為之捕捉與呈現。他說肖相：「要有情感，要說出其人特質，要不同而難忘，更要表現出人性的共相」。不啻是美學判斷(sensus communis)哲學家康德的代言攝影師。麥氏人物攝影銳利地凝視著你，彷彿來自亙古宇宙角落的眼神(sub specie aeternitatis)， 並充盈著巴特(Barthes)強調的刺點(Punctum)，亦即感受每張照片無法控制的關鍵。弗立得(Fried)攝影新論融合影像的劇場性(Theatricality)與自足性(Absorption)，將無意識的情感刺點與有意識的表演安排結合並置，而麥氏攝影已先行多年了。

 

本展以影像之取像(making picture)，成像(rendering image)及in/印象(innervating impression) 三階段為軸，設計包含12件裝置藝術的展覽空間，探求、解答並提出更多攝影藝術與哲學問題。例如：攝影的本質是什麼？攝影藝術史的理論與實踐進程對當代創作的啓發為何？攝影藝術如何能提昇全民美感教育並培養創造力？期待「晃影」觀展後能顯其所以然，提高視覺思考及美感判斷力,那麼我們對影像藝術創新的展望就不僅始於漫遊。電影「迷魂記/Vertigo」中詹姆斯史都華搭訕金露華，約她一起漫無目的地晃晃，金回答：「一個人會去漫遊晃晃，兩個人一起就會去某個地方了(One wanders, two are always going somewhere) 。」 有麥柯里同行，我們會比較有方向感要往哪裡晃去晃來。

 

’S WANDERFUL│MAKING PICTURES ─ Steve McCurry Solo Exhibition

 

Curator: Leo Chanjen Chen

 

About the Exhibition

The ubiquity and democratization of photography in digital era has elevated its position above cinema, making it “the most important art”, which is why it is increasingly imperative to learn how to think, analyze, and make images to communicate. Hence the significances of the first Steve McCurry solo photography exhibition in Chinese-speaking worlds are two-fold: on the one hand, the McCurry at MOCA, Taipei exhibition connects and engages Taiwan to the discourses of global photography art, on the other hand, the exhibition intervenes, reconsiders and repositions the relationship between McCurry’s photography and contemporary art. Title of the exhibition, ’S Wanderful | Making Pictures, refers to McCurry’s photo journeys around the world, highlighting his fondness for wandering and the profound meanings behind his serendipitous capturing of humanity. The title coinage combines “wander” and “wonder”, suggesting a notion of “no wander no wonder”, while also alludes to the musicality embodied in photography by referencing classic Broadway song, “’S Wonderful”, composed by George Gershwin.

 

McCurry’s photography touches hearts and moves people, his iconic Afghan Girl has inspired people to volunteer and join refugee relief forces, and its impacts are far-reaching and continue to resonate. Memorable photographs impress upon you with indelible imprints of beauty, visualize human experiences by giving life forms, and structuring memories; some iconic works even convey layers of historical depths and contemporary connectedness. McCurry traverses space and time as he transcends different cultures and generations, from a photojournalist to an artist telling stories through images, from the medium of film to the digital. What remains unchanged is how he captures and makes visible human nature and behaviors in poesis. McCurry believes that a portrait should have emotions, tell of the person’s notable features, it must be different, unique and unforgettable, and yet, above all, it must also showcase the universality of humanity. In that regard, McCurry’s photographic aesthetics not only embody philosopher Kant’s aesthetic judgment - sensus communis, the individual sensibility that communicates with all mankind, but also makes him a Kantian photographer par excellence. McCurry’s portraits gaze sharply at you, with looks that seem to come from corners of the universe, transport you through perspectives of eternity - sub specie aeternitatis. Full of Barthesian punctum, the points that trigger involuntary reaction in experiencing each photograph.

 

McCurry’s photography has been exemplifying for decades what art critic Michael Fried tried to theorize, to integrate the absorption and theatricality in photography that juxtapose and combine unconscious emotional pathos with conscious performative ethos.

This exhibition consists of three cohering themes about photography: “Making picture”, “Rendering image”, and “Innervating impression”. Twelve installation artworks extend the exhibition space to explore, answer, and challenge issues of photography, art and philosophy, including: What is the essence and sine qua non of photography? What inspires contemporary art that transpires theories and practices in the art history of photography? How would the art of photography elevate aesthetic education and foster creativity? It is our aspiration that McCurry’s pictures in ’S Wanderful | Making Pictures, would make some of the answers and more of the questions apparent while nudging in visual thinking and aesthetic judgment as habit. Through the process of making photography art, our prospectus for visual art will expand beyond the initiating wander. In the movie Vertigo, James Stewart asks Kim Novak to wander together. Novak replies: “One wanders, two are always going somewhere.” Accompanied by McCurry, we would have a better sense of direction for where to wander.

Ant Skyscraper along a highway in northern Namibia. These impressive constructions dot the landscapes everywhere in the northern half of Namibia. The ants which build these are tiny, barely individually visible, and do their work only in the dark of night. Though this is an average size, we were told they reach a height of 8 meters (25 ft.) ( ! ! ). Native people used to "pave" the floors of their huts, with smashed, broken down bits of these, a habit which was emulated by the early Boer settlers of the region ... Apparently , in the building process, the ants infuse the clay with a coagulant, allowing it to cohere in a manner reminiscent of concrete, when thus utilized.

John Ruskin

Ruskin's views on art, wrote Kenneth Clark, "cannot be made to form a logical system, and perhaps owe to this fact a part of their value." Certain principles, however, remain consistent throughout his work and have been summarized in Clark's own words as the following:

 

That art is not a matter of taste, but involves the whole man. Whether in making or perceiving a work of art, we bring to bear on it feeling, intellect, morals, knowledge, memory, and every other human capacity, all focused in a flash on a single point. Aesthetic man is a concept as false and dehumanizing as economic man.

That even the most superior mind and the most powerful imagination must found itself on facts, which must be recognized for what they are. The imagination will often reshape them in a way which the prosaic mind cannot understand; but this recreation will be based on facts, not on formulas or illusions.

That these facts must be perceived by the senses, or felt; not learnt.

That the greatest artists and schools of art have believed it their duty to impart vital truths, not only about the facts of vision, but about religion and the conduct of life.

That beauty of form is revealed in organisms which have developed perfectly according to their laws of growth, and so give, in his own words, 'the appearance of felicitous fulfilment of function.'

That this fulfilment of function depends on all parts of an organism cohering and cooperating. This was what he called the 'Law of Help,' one of Ruskin's fundamental beliefs, extending from nature and art to society.

That good art is done with enjoyment. The artist must feel that, within certain reasonable limits, he is free, that he is wanted by society, and that the ideas he is asked to express are true and important.

That great art is the expression of epochs where people are united by a common faith and a common purpose, accept their laws, believe in their leaders, and take a serious view of human destiny."

Founded in 1683, The Ashmolean re-opened on Saturday 7th November 2009. Their new display approach is "crossing culture crossing time." It was my first glimpse today, the much loved older museum is still here, but now enormously extended and plenty more to enjoy.

Supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Ashmolean is currently undergoing a £61 million redevelopment. Award-winning architect Rick Mather has designed a new building to replace all but the Grade I listed Cockerell building. His design will double the existing gallery space, allow environmental control, and create a dedicated Education Centre and conservation facilities.

 

I've tried to show something of the atmosphere and texture of the museum in many of the photos, I also wanted to convey the sense of movement and people's interaction with the art objects, therefore razor sharp clarity (were I to achieve that) was not my number one objective. This set will grow as I explore the new galleries, I hope you'll forgive me if I do not tag or describe everything right away as there is so much to take in! Martin Beek Oxford, November 2009