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People as a whole scare me.
thats why I keep them at a reasonable distance.
I should stop that, but it's hard when actions differ from words.
**fourty-six of three sixty-five**
My favorite hangout rises again... I'm hoping they've kept Jim's perogies and salads on the menu.
This is one of the first shots from the X100s, overexposed by over two stops. The JPG was a complete loss, but the RAW file had amazing latitude with nothing blown out.
Learning my new tools--Fujifilm X100S and LightRoom 5.
Dreamer
1
There are few probabilities through
Which dreamers do not pass. . .
The first dream
Is the bright red dream
Of our mother’s heart.
It is her sacrifice
Of something eternal
In herself, for us.
The Arabs say
Blood has flowed
Let us begin again.
The heart is like a cup, or a coffer,
or a cave. It holds the image of the
sun within us. It is a center of illumination
and happiness and wisdom. To dream
of the heart is always to dream of
the importance of love. . .
The second dream is the inauguration
Of the soul. In this dream we are
Confronted by a host of birds. . .
Some were guileless
Like the doves,
Said Odo of Tusculum,
Cunning
Like the partridges.
Some came to the hand
Like the hawks.
Others fled from it
Like the hens,
Some enjoyed the company
Of people
Like swallows,
Others preferred solitude
Like the turtledoves,
But all eventually flew away.
“Living is not necessary, but navigation
is,” said Pompey the Great.
B. 1725, London
Mother devout as gunpowder
Seemingly clairvoyant
Taught her only child
To read by four
Arithmetic and Latin by six
Dies when he is seven.
I am dreaming
I am in the dark
And it is raining
And she is the rain.
To dream that you are in the dark
is a sign of difficulties ahead; if
you fall or hurt yourself you can expect
a change for the worse, but if you
succeed in groping to the light, that
is another matter. . .
Father, master of ships,
Lively in the Mediterranean trade,
Unusual qualities —
Educated in Spain, stern.
I listen to nothing
But the silence
Of my father; the dream
Says
He is the rudder
And the compass.
If, in your dreams, you see your
father and he speaks to you, it is
a sign of coming happiness. If he is
silent, or if he appears to be ill or
dead, then you may expect trouble. . .
Sent to sea at ten,
Acted like a verb in disagreement,
Of course
Bright,
But no eagle —
A mess.
I have vague
Dreams now
Of intelligent flowers.
I cannot say
If their roots
Are in the ground
Or in the air.
By seventeen
A wildflower
In the field of Jesus.
Pious, books, fasting,
Abstinence from meat,
A canon in his meditation
And silence,
But like the weeds
Loved to curse.
Flowers, one of nature’s best dreams.
This foretells great happiness, unless
you throw away the blossoms. . .
1742
A lot more flexible,
Falls in love,
Misses his ship,
A freethinker now,
Less of a thorn
In the side of God.
I dream that I
Am always with her,
A freckle on her wrist,
A flower in her hair,
A ridiculous flying fish —
Sliced
And dressed
And set on the table.
As I told you before,
He missed his ship,
Became a lover
Rather than a Jamaican
Planter,
Father as expected
Furious.
Love is a dream of contraries as far
as sweethearts are concerned. To dream
that you do not succeed in love is a
sign that you will marry and have
a happy life. To dream that you are in
the company of your lover is also fortunate. . .
Late 1743
Kidnapped into the Navy
(What else)
Coming from Mary’s house.
Taken from his own life,
Focused into new pieces.
I dream about my fortune,
A fragrance captured
In a jar,
A freckle without a wrist,
A wisp
Foxlike at the edge
Of the wind.
Fortune is a dream of contraries: the more
fortunate and successful you are in imagination,
the greater will be your real struggles. . .
How do we fit together
When we are not free?
What kind of animal are we?
How many heads do we have?
How many tails?
The sea
Is a strange piece of property
On which to discuss this,
On the hms Hardwick
One month later
Midshipman John Newton:
I have eaten war
Like a cluster
Of delicious fruit.
The ironic juices
Running from my lips
That was my dream.
The reality of war is the dream of it. Beware
of those things that appear so friendly
but have no reason. . .
1774
The Hardwick
Ordered to the East Indies.
First our hero visits Mary again.
(You’re wrong)
Almost misses ship,
Completely misses the point.
Given small boat of men
To go ashore at Plymouth,
Deserts.
My dreams here
Were father, compass,
Fog, leakage,
And ultimately, learning,
With us
Like our laundry.
We are always pulling from our past. Fossils
are the dream of the sickness of someone
you have not met for a long time. When
this happens brew herbs, add honey
and lemon, sip and inhale deeply. . .
Captured like a frog,
Returned, put in irons,
Stripped, flogged, degraded,
Returned to foremast.
This is that point many people would
call a black moment, an unfortunate
color on things. I will not do that. For
black is a contrary at funerals and our
hero has just died a little as we
all tend to from time to time. And even
though that is true I will not do
that either. I will not talk of the great
white moment of death, I will not talk
of the great blue and purple moments
in the prosperity of pain. I will not
talk of the great red or scarlet moments
of quarrels and loss of friends, or
the crimson pleasure of the unexpected,
the mental tints of yellow and orange
that show you should always expect
change, or the feeling of knowing green
because you have been on a long journey.
All the colors are conjurers when our
mysteries are being solved. And if this could
not be his dream then by now it should
be ours. . .
We are not holy
The wind says in the sails
As he works.
It has never been otherwise
Though we live in the most
Devout of stories like litmus paper
Constantly changing color
Just to prove something
Is happening.
The sadness in his dream is a good omen
for the future. It is a quest for lasting joy,
and so is punishment a dream of unexpected
pleasure. . .
Works quietly for weeks.
His silence
Darns a temperate
Healing thread
His eyes
Become an elaborate
Decorative art
Avoiding everyone.
“Every month,” said Cicero
“the moon contemplates
its trajectory
and the shrubs
and animals grow.”
He has done to himself
What is easy.
He must now blossom
Out of his new secrets
Even if joy is ephemeral.
Suddenly
He begins to sing,
Creates songs about fish
And clouds.
Fish are a dream of penetrative motion,
clouds are a dream of appearances always
in a state of change. . .
We must be patient
With the overfecundity
Of his youth.
We must let him
Climb and descend the mast
Like a weapon.
Trade him
To a slaver’s ship
To subdue the threat
To discipline
In his strangely awakening
Joy.
We must let him
Choose his monsters
And the myths
Of his own worth —
The enemy always being
The forces threatening
From within.
Paul said, “We wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the darkness
of this world, against spiritual wickedness in
high places. . .”
Suddenly,
Begins to breathe
Different songs
In his six-months’ stay
Along the Sierra Leone coast.
Troublesome songs,
Songs of quick wit
And devastating rhymes
Ridiculing ship’s officers,
Crew loves them,
Becomes a choir.
To dream that you hear other people
singing shows that the difficulties
that will come for you will come through
your dealings with other people. . .
The irate mate
Assuming command
After the death of the captain
Threatens
To put Newton
On a man-o’-war.
The Royal Navy is not an obstacle dream;
it is an elaborate exhibition of the
nuances of living death. . .
Occupation: slave dealer
Place: Sierra Leone
On one of the Plantanes
Features: Short, white male
Name: Clow
Other information: Black wife
Name: sounds like P.I.
John Newton
Bargains his life
Into this extravagant story.
He will become a slave
Because P.I. will hate him.
He will become ill
With fever.
He will be denied
Food,
Denied water,
Tormented by Black slaves
On command,
Put to work
On a lime tree plantation
Enjoying only the scents
And dreaming
Of his earthly desires,
Will master the six books
Of Euclid,
Drawing the diagrams
With a long stick
In the wet sand.
Six is, like two, a particularly ambiguous
number to dream about, but it
establishes equilibrium. It unifies
the triangles of fire and water and
symbolizes the human soul. Six is
the hermaphrodite, a personality integrated
despite its duality.
If this is a story
Of the reasoning of slavery,
Where are we?
What have we been doing
To people,
To the light
From which life emanates?
Slavery is a story
Of procreation,
Of magic religious thinking,
Of the androgynous divinity
Within us.
No story can be this happy
Unless it is married
To something deeply within us.
It is not them
Who have done it to us,
Or us
Who have done it to them.
It is the antagonistic dream
Of unreconciled love.
To dream of erotic love is to dream of
the desire to die in the object of desire, to
dissolve in that which is already
dissolved. The Book of Baruch says erotic
desire and its satisfaction is the key
to the origin of the world. Disappointment
in love and the revenge which follows
in its wake are the roots of all the evil
and selfishness in the world. The whole
of history is the work of love.
2
“The character of the image,” said Shukrâchârya,
“is determined by the relationship between
the worshipper and the worshipped.”
On the beach,
He eats the fruit
Of his own way;
He fills himself
With his own devices;
He continues to draw
In the sand.
Each grain
Is a small,
Precise form
Of salvation
That has occurred,
A god come to earth
In another form,
A private,
Innate sacrifice.
Providence does not tire.
We are ready to go on
With the story.
It has come to this:
When his father dreams
He only sees
The broad face
Of sadness,
The soft grassland
Where only asphodels grow,
And the idea of water
Expanding into tears.
But to dream of sadness is a good
omen, a transportation of suffering to the
spiritual: this dream is like an herb,
a seasoning, a bitter root, medicinal,
something poisonous, but nevertheless
something that eventually withers away.
When you
Come on to squally weather,
When the wind
Is about SW,
When
You sway up the yard
Fix the trysail,
Put people to making
Sennit and swab,
Ask for my son.
Ask the Lamb,
The Beverly, the Golden Lyon,
Ask Job Lewis,
Have you seen my boy?
Have you seen my boy?
One thousand years before Christ, Solomon
said that the way of a ship in the midst
of the sea was too wonderful for him
to understand.
Meanwhile,
Clow: shamed
Into freeing his fellow
White man.
After all
They share the same hair,
The same instinctual life,
The same irrational power.
There is no victim here:
This is a story of love’s
Sadness,
Of the spirit of love’s ferocity
And savage insensibility,
And the name of Jesus
Turned in hymns,
Spewed into the fringes
Of the forest,
Spewed on the deep blue sea.
What dream is this, is that what you said?
My God, this is the dream of the dragon,
the fabulous animal, the amalgam of
aggression, the serpent, the crocodile, the
lion, what we like to think is the
antediluvian nature of love.
John is free now.
John is free to slave,
Free to be reluctant,
To give up profit
and return home.
Ask the master of the Greyhound.
Have you seen my boy?
Have you seen my boy?
To find money in your dream is not fortunate
at all. There will be some sudden advancement
or success, but it will prove
disappointing. Reader, remember this
statement by Virgil, “It will be pleasant
to remember these things hereafter.”
You cannot blame
The sea on a woman.
Unlike the seasons
It has no ribs
Though
It has a crown,
Wears a sheath,
Swings a sickle,
Adores the sun,
And is known
As bareheaded and leafless.
The sea is the emblem
Of the great capricious world;
The naked image of flux
Vibrating between life and death.
There is a dream called “Dire is the tossing
deep the groans; come let us heel, list
and stoop.” And when John heard this
on his way home, it was as if he
had read 2 Kings 10:16, “Come with me
[brother] and see my zeal for the lord.”
For twelve months
The Greyhound
Sought gold,
Ivory, dyer’s wood,
Beeswax,
And Newton sought the Lord.
The way of a ship in the midst of the sea
is too wonderful to understand.
Youth is not innocence.
It is not a militant puzzlement.
It is a methodological initiation
Into the ubiquitous life
Of sin.
For a life without sin
Is no life at all.
And so he wanders on
Like Paul,
So very Christian about it,
At once wretched and delivered.
Thinking with his mind
He is serving God,
But with his flesh
The law of sin.
Call out John Newton.
Call out
To Joshua, Ruth,
Samuel, Obadiah,
Esther, Zechariah,
Luke and Timothy.
The world
Is a masterfully round
Secret
That embraces everything,
And it is time
To reach into the horizon,
Now.
It is time to choose
Your ship,
And the triangle of your life
Upon the salty sea.
As you can see, dreams are without reason,
without solution, without proof, the
unedited version of our love, our aspiration,
our hurt. . . Call out John Newton. Call out. . .
Back home
Offered captaincy of ship.
Refuses.
Sails as first mate
On the Brownlow.
Collects slaves.
Takes them to South Carolina.
He begins to dream of questions: “What
was the mode used in stowing the slaves
in their apartments?”
Returns home,
Marries Mary Cattlett,
Assumes first command,
The Duke of Argyle,
140 tons burthen.
Marriage is the dream of sulfur and
mercury. Some believe it is a most fortunate
omen, a volatile conciliation, a fragile
union. They are right. It is one of the great
uncharted seas of individuation. It is
said, “If you are separated from your
opposite you consume yourself away. . .”
Dead reckoning
Magnetical Amplitude W° 25.30N°
True Amplitude W° 6.30°
Variation 19° in Western
Lattitude per Account 50° 48m
One-third of the slaves will die
In middle passage
Some say fifty million
Started the trip
Some say fifteen.
The dream of questions is a bright necklace
with two ornaments on it: liberty and
love, not truth.
“At noon some small rain. . .
Had an indifferent observation. . .”
“We take the two men-boys
For some shallop rigging,
We do not take
The two fallen-breasted women. . .”
“Dear Mary,
Today, saw
My quondam Black
Mistress P.I. —
I believe
I made her sorry
For her former ill
Treatment of me.”
The trouble with atonement is it is like
a sphinx, several parts human, several
parts bull, dog, lion, dragon, or bird.
When we are dreaming of atonement, no
matter how subtly, we must remember
we are not dreaming of a verb.
“I watch them work
The tie, tackle,
And lower lift.
The boatswain
Speaks to Bredson
About the score
In one of the strops.
Thomas Creed
Sits with his splicing fids;
Tucks the strands
Of the tack cringle.
His fingers are either
Little mystics or snakes.”
When you dream the dream of square-sail
rigging you are dreaming the dream
that the same side is always before
the wind. At the dawn of Swedish history
it was believed Erik Vädderhatt, the
King of the Svear, could turn the wind
and cruise endlessly. Ships are supposed
to be emblems of transcendental joy. . .
“Do the male slaves
Ever dance
Under these circumstances?”
“After every meal
They are made to jump
In their irons;
But I cannot call it dancing.”
“What is the term
That is usually given to it?”
“It is by the slave dealers
Called dancing.”
“Unclewed the sails.
They too in their shackles
Danced in the wind.”
“Dear Mary,
I watched the land wind
Do to the sails
What it does
To our hair.
I dreamed of dancing
With you
Into the cold water,
Our wet clothes
Like nets and entanglements
Around our desire.”
They would call them up
Two by two, equivocal,
Unmasked,
Making it possible
To be classified
Forever:
Pairs of birds,
Pairs of oxen,
Pairs of sheep,
Reptiles, lions,
Elephants, antediluvian,
Carnivorous, herbivorous,
Fabulous, beautiful,
Ugly, strange,
Cocks, locusts, bears,
Foxes, and even flies,
All of them black;
All of them in colonnade
To the gates of hell.
John did baptize
In the wilderness,
Did call out to Judæa
And Jerusalem
Come lay down
Your life
In the River Jordan,
Participate in his death
And his resurrection.
They said
They were refreshing them,
But the shackles still clanged,
And most of them still stank,
And many finding holes
In the netting
Jumped overboard
And baptized themselves
Bobbing in the adoring
Loins of the sea.
“Dear Mary,
The three greatest blessings
Of which human nature is capable
Are undoubtedly religion,
Liberty and love.”
The shape of a ship’s hull is determined by
the materials, methods of construction,
means of propulsion, use, fashion, and
whim. This is a dream of law and
the minute verities of justice, the eighth
enigma of the tarot.
First part fair,
The latter cloudy,
Winds becoming unusual,
Clouds dark, great lightning. . .
I think of what we’ve done,
My own illumination
Before it is too late:
The palm and needle whippings,
The short splice,
Blackwall hitches,
Sheet bends.
Quickly rummage
The rigging details,
The yardarm blocks,
The tackles.
Recall work
On the pintles,
The rudder head.
Have Billinge
Check barricado and stores,
Especially powder and slaves.
On this day
Of the second voyage
Of The African, 1754,
Weighed,
Bound by God’s permission
To St. Christophers,
We are ready for our justice,
To be winnowed like barley
On the threshing floor.
The great dream of the dark, with the
lonely extroverted lamp, the intuitive ship,
and the wind tossing on the innovative sea
should moor somewhere. “Why is this
so?” asked Kuo Hsi. For in our landscapes
and our seascapes are the personalized items
of our consciousness, the coarse grist
of our imagination, the flirtatious metaphors
stirring our ethics, and the boldly stroked
delineations of our unraveling possibilities
and original nature.
Through the night
We were played with
Like kittens.
The slaves spilled
Out nightmares of themselves
And groans.
We will all
Need dawn’s shawl
This morning.
I hope
She is good to us.
Osiris was slain by Set and put
together again by Isis. John will dream
like this, off and on, and then quit the
sea. This is his last voyage. He will
lose no slaves and no crew, and it will
be called a blessing. At a time like
this the Egyptians would build a
monolith to marry the enigmatic tension
between life and death. John will
change his dreams, now, from the menstrual
dreams of the slaver to the menthol dreams
of the minister. Showing the devastating evil
we do, like a storm, is only a stepping-
stone to something else.
Sing brother.
I will become sermons,
He says,
That understand what I’ve done.
Sing
I will become hymns
Bound in the skin
Of what I’ve done.
I will be patient with Cowper,
Inspiring to Wilberforce
And Wordsworth;
I will attract the awakened crowds,
The abolitionist.
I will stand at the altar.
Sing brother
Dressed in black,
Testifying,
Testifying. . .
I dream I will not be forgiving him
for the timeliness of his innocence, for
betrothing the dead to the dead,
but will be lifting
up my hands to an appetite for life
that will take slavers and slaves with me.
I wish
There was no timelessness,
That slavery was over
And so far away
It was an incredibly mysterious
Jungle —
Somewhere else.
An uncharted river
Canopied by extensive moss —
Somewhere else.
A spectacular ragged
Waterfall
Mystically expressed
Over an enormous
Obsidian wall,
But it is right here
In my pouch, today,
Like the acori beads
I have been swimming with
For hours —
Presidential, prime ministerial,
Corporate, grassroots based.
right here,
Racist, imperial, and sexist.
right here,
Woefully spendthrift
And Democratic,
Anally retentive
And Republican,
Militantly inappropriate,
And so good to itself
That it jogs.
Primus St. John, “Dreamer” from Communion: Poems 1976-1998. Copyright © 1999 by Primus St. John. Reprinted with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townshend, WA 98368-0271, coppercanyonpress.org.
Source: Communion: Poems 1976-1998 (Copper Canyon Press, 1999)
Primus St. John's poems often wed personal to public and quotidian to historical. He is as well known for his love poems as for his long poems, notably the epic poem “Dreamer,” written in the voices of the slaves and the captain aboard a slave ship. He has said that he tries “to be as comfortable with anger as [he is] with tenderness,” and this is evidenced by his nuanced handling of the human proclivity for contradiction as well as self-improvement.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Sacred Hunger
For those interested in the history of the slave trade, Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger is an excellent and well-researched fictional accounting of the fate of one slaving ship, its owner and the many lives on board.
"Unsworth illuminates the barbaric cruelty of slavery, as well as the subtler habits of politics and character that it creates." (Publisher's Weekly)
[綾瀬. 東京. Ayase, Tokyo. 2010 / Nikkor 50mm. f/1.4. iso1000. 1/100]
Recalling a conversation with a girl (pretending) studying french (dadou~ knows who i'm talking about) last week. As she was boasting around how she was deep into muay thai and how great it was, i shared my experience with finding a good martial art place in Singapore, even if obviously she did not have enough time to listen at what anyone else but her could say, engrossed as she was in showing off.
I told her how i had these preconceived ideas that, Singapore being in Asia, i would easily find some dojo or boxing clubs with great spirit. And how i had been often disappointed, in most of the several trial courses i attended, to find a recurrent state of mind far from my expectations. A state of mind made of shallowness, arrogance, disrespect for other martial arts or experiences.
Shallowness, with this constant obsession of fitness, of looking good, complacency and impatience.
Arrogance, with the delusion of thinking you're the best, even after just a few years, and with this obsession of being efficient.
Disrespect, by constantly comparing with the other ways of martial arts, roughly simplifying them in order to demean them, without trying to know more about them.
I felt this attitude in the western parts of this world as well, but never so blatantly. Actually, in Europe or Northern America, i felt sometimes rather a sort of sect-like attitude, triggering that arrogance in relation with other schools or ways (a chapel-like aspect i always hated in martial arts), while, in Singapore, it rather sounded like a consumerist attitude, as if martial arts and clubs were brands, like "ok, i found the best item, best value for money, and every other brand is not worth it"...
In other words, it seemed as if the local kiasuism ("fear to lose"), added with impatience, ignorance of the rest of the world (one of the most astonishing contradiction of Singapore, being on one hand the epitome of a cosmopolitan hub open to the rest of the world, and, on the other hand, sometimes unable to understand the way the rest of the world is working and thinking), a consumerist state of mind, would somehow rub off (and possibly taint) on the spirit of martial arts, or at least the way they are taught and comprehended. Wanting to grab all, immediately and any old how - at the conjunction of kiasuism (=fear of losing), impatience and bochap (=carelessness) attitude.
Too busy bragging around for paying attention to the metaphorical aspects of my remarks, the girl seemed to give more substance to my point, which didn't need that honour. Here's what she said :
"- Yeah, yeah, but my club is deep in spirit, you know..."
"- Ah. Great you found a club not obsessed by fitness and appearance. What's its name?" i asked.
"-Fitness First"
"-Ah. But... er... I guess you're learning also the cultural aspects and the spirit behind thai boxing, like the rituals and the way to control strength and breath, right?"
"-Yeah, of course. But not this bullshit with the dancing and so on. We kick bags and we have thai r'n'b..."
"-Ah."
Then she got carried away : "-But it's so much better than all those shits you're talking about... Muay thai is the best, you know. Boxing? Bullshit! It's just 6 different movements. So poor, and inefficient. Kung fu? It's just for movies, it's not efficient, actually. And the thing you talk about, whats its name again lah? Ah yes, aikido. Just bullshit..."
"- You've tried these martial arts before, then?" i asked.
"- Huh? What for? Cannot lose my time lah. No, muay thai is the best, and my club is really the best. I'm training 5 times a week now, and i'm in super shape. You should try it... Er... but you have to be in good shape..." she said. The other girl who was patiently listening at her boasting rolled her eyes, had a bemused look at the flabby tummy and arms of the muay thai queen wannabe...
I kept a frozen smile, listening patiently at this half-my-age girl, stuck in her aggressive certitudes. In a blink of an eye (or two, maybe), i felt that stupid thought creeping into my brain, wondering how many seconds it will take to knock her out with one of the not-so-inefficient tricks all her aerobic-like-muay thai classes won't teach - probably a simple headbutt would be enough. Then i felt ashamed to get contaminated (even for just a short moment) by her aggressive certitudes.
"- Perhaps i'm too old to rely only on my strength, stamina and aggressivity, i guess...", i said.
"- Yeah... That's why fitness gyms are good for teaching muay thai, you see...", she philosophically observed
Then i asked her : "- Thank you for the information. For how long have you been doing muay thai, again?"
"- Almost one year, and my teacher says i'll be an expert soon."
"- So, you don't need to get any exam then, i guess, like french, since you did not feel the need to pass the exam for going to the next level..." i said bitterly, this girl's level and attention in french class being pathetic.
"- Yeah... Er... No, it's not the same... i mean er... ", she muttered.
"- If you say so. Have a good day..."
[version française]
Il revient à ma mémoire une conversation avec une fille étudiant le français (ou du moins prétendant le faire, dadou~ sait de qui je veux parler), la semaine dernière. Comme elle n'arrêtait pas de se vanter et de dire comme elle était à fond dans la boxe thai et ô combien c'était génial, j'ai partagé un peu de mon expérience à propos de trouver un bon lieu pour pratiquer les arts martiaux à Singapour, même si manifestement elle n'avait pas le temps d'écouter ce que quiconque d'autre qu'elle pouvait avoir à dire, absorbée qu'elle était à se la pêter.
Je lui ai dit que j'avais toutes ces idées préconçues selon lesquelles, Singapour étant en Asie, j'y trouverais facilement des dôjo ou des clubs de boxe avec un bel esprit. Et combien j'avais été souvent déçu, dans la plupart des essais que j'avais pu faire, de n'y trouver qu'un état d'esprit récurrent, bien loin de mes attentes. Un état d'esprit fait de superficialité, d'arrogance et de manque de respect vis-à-vis des autres arts martiaux et des expériences différentes.
Superficialité, avec cette obsession constante du fitness, d'avoir l'air beau, complaisance et impatience.
Arrogance, avec cette illusion de croire qu'on est le meilleur, même après à peine quelques années, et cette obsession de l'efficacité.
Manque de respect, en se comparant constamment avec les autres arts martiaux, en les schématisant grossièrement pour mieux les rabaisser, sans chercher à en savoir plus sur eux.
J'avais également ressenti parfois cette attitude dans les parties occidentales de ce monde, mais jamais de façon aussi flagrante. En fait, en Europe et en Amérique du Nord, je sentais plutôt parfois une sorte d'attitude sectaire, déclenchant cette arrogance vis-à-vis des autres écoles ou voies (un esprit de clocher que j'ai toujours détesté dans les arts martiaux), alors qu'à Singapour, ça s'apparente plus à une attitude consumériste, comme si les arts martiaux et clubs étaient des marques, du genre "bon, j'ai trouvé le meilleur article, le meilleur rapport qualité-prix et aucune autre marque n'est à la hauteur"...
En d'autres termes, tout se passe comme si le kiasuism ("peur de perdre"), ajouté à l'impatience, l'ignorance du reste du monde (un des paradoxes les plus étonnants de Singapour, à la fois symbole d'un port cosmopolite ouvert sur le reste du monde, tout en étant parfois incapable de comprendre la façon dont fonctionne et pense le reste du monde), allié à un état d'esprit consumériste, venait d'une certaine façon déteindre sur l'esprit des arts martiaux (et peut-être même le souiller), ou du moins sur la manière dont ils sont enseignés et appréhendés. Tout, tout de suite et n'importe comment - à la jonction entre kiasuism (=peur de perdre), impatience et attitude bochap (=je m'enfoutisme, manque de soin).
Trop occupée à se vanter pour prêter attention aux aspects métaphoriques de ma remarque, la fille a donné sans s'en rendre compte plus de substance à mon argument, qui n'en demandait pas tant. Voici ce qu'elle a dit :
"- Ouais, ouais, mais mon club il est à fond dans l'esprit, tu vois..."
"- Ah. C'est super que tu aies trouvé un club pas obsédé par le fitness et l'apparence. Il s'appelle comment?", je lui ai demandé.
"-Fitness First"
"-Ah. Mais... Euh... Je suppose que tu y apprends aussi des aspects culturels et l'esprit derrière la boxe thai, comme les rituels et la manière de contrôler sa force et sa respiration, non?"
"- Ben ouais, bien sûr. Mais pas ces conneries avec la danse à la con et tout. On tape dans des sacs et y'a du r'n'b thailandais..."
"-Ah."
Et puis elle s'est emballée : "- Mais c'est tellement mieux que toutes ces merdes dont tu parles... La boxe thai, c'est c'qui a de mieux, tu vois. La boxe? C'est de la merde! Y'a juste 6 mouvements différents. Tellement limité, et inefficace. Kung fu? C'est juste pour les films, c'est pas efficace, en fait, tu vois. Et le truc que tu m'as dit, comment qu'ça s'appelle déjà, là? Ah ouais, aïkido. C'est juste de la merde..."
"- Alors tu as essayé ces arts martiaux avant?", je lui ai demandé.
"- Hein? Pour quoi faire? J'ai pas d'temps à perdre, là. Non, la boxe thai c'est c'qui a d'mieux, et mon club c'est l'meilleur. J'm'entraîne 5 fois par semaine maintenant, et j'suis en super forme. Tu d'vrais essayer... Euh... Mais bon 'faut être en forme quoi...", qu'elle m'a dit. L'autre fille qui l'écoutait patiemment se vanter a levé les yeux au ciel et a jeté un regard désabusé sur le ventre et les bras flasques de celle qui se voyait reine de la boxe thai...
Un sourire figé sur mes lèvres, j'ai écouté patiemment cette fille deux fois plus jeune que moi, engluée dans ses certitudes agressives.
L'espace d'un battement de cils (ou deux), je me suis surpris à sentir cette pensée stupide s'insinuer en moi, du genre combien de secondes me faudrait-il pour la mettre hors combat en utilisant un de ces trucs pas-si-inefficaces-que ça qu'elle n'apprendrait jamais dans un de ses cours de boxe thai à la sauce aérobic - probablement qu'un simple coup de boule suffirait. Puis, immédiatement, je me suis senti honteux de me faire contaminer pour un instant par ses certitudes agressives.
"- Je suis peut-être trop vieux pour croire uniquement en ma force, ma résistance et mon agressivité.", lui ai-je fait remarquer.
"- Ben ouais, c'est pour ça que les clubs de fitness c'est bien pour faire d'la boxe thai...", a-t-elle philosophiquement observé.
Je lui ai demandé : "- Merci pour ces informations. Tu fais de la boxe thai depuis combien de temps, déjà?"
"- ça va faire bientôt un an, et mon prof dit que je serai une pro bientôt."
"- Alors, t'as pas besoin de passer d'examen, je suppose, comme pour le français, puisque tu n'as pas senti le besoin de passer l'exam' pour t'inscrire d'office au niveau suivant...", j'ai dit amèrement, le niveau d'attention et le niveau tout court de cette fille en cours de français étant affligeant.
"- Ouais... Euh... Non, c'est pas pareil...j'veux dire euh... ", elle a marmonné.
"- Si tu le dis... Bonne journée..."
"Their new car turned out to be a lemon. It never ran right."
Taken for Macro Mondays.
2/14/2011: Theme: Metaphor
Playful metaphor for European MOOCs participants. For more info, check out openeducationeuropa.eu/en/blogs/open-your-professional-de...
so basically this was inspired when i was cleaning up my room and i had to store a bunch of old magazines. the most convenient place ended up being in a box full of leogs that was stashed under my bed. (yes i have a box of legos stashed under my bed.)
then i started getting all metaphorical and was wondering about the contrast between legos, a typical younger (or older) boy's toy, and fashion magazines, which are usually for the female gender. i decided to merge them and see what happened. unfortunately i was too lazy to get into good light and it looked kinda like crap, so i changed this little effect on PS, posterize or something, and it ended up looking kinda cool.
Jim owned the Metaphor Cafe for a few memorable years and immediately distinguished himself as the city's premier purveyor of pierogies. His salad dressing, which he claimed had some ungodly number of spices, was legend, as were his enchanting waitstaff of young women, all with far more charm and attitude than restaurant experience.
What I loved most about the Metaphor in those days were Jim's paintings. The cafe was his canvas, from entrance to restrooms, everywhere one looked--walls, ceilings, floors, counters, tables, even the plumbing.
This painting is one of very few left at the Metaphor, on the entry door to the space Jim kept next to the cafe. This little room was fully fitted out as a hair styling salon, where Jim would treat his preferred customers to styling sessions while their dinner was (ever so slowly) prepared. PJay loved the attention, and she'd always return to the table coiffed in some radically altered state. Meanwhile, I'd smoke a cigar and flirt with Jim's waitress du jour.
It's only been a few years since Jim sold the Metaphor, but it seems an eternity to me.
Invisibility by environment
An object may be classified as "invisible" if it cannot be noticed by use of sight due to environmental factors other than the fact that it doesn't reflect light. An object that might normally be seeable may be classified as invisible if it is:
* Behind an object.
* The same colour or pattern as the background. (Camouflage)
* Patterned so that its outline is hard to determine.
* In an environment which is too dark or too bright.
* In a particular observer's Blind spot (outside that observer's line-of-sight).
J. Spencer Smith Elementary School - Tenafly, NJ
This is my first attempt at a triptych!!! Not Bad!!!
Camera: Cosina Voigtlander Bessa R3M
Lens: KMZ Jupiter 3 50mm f1.5
Film: Ultrafine 400
Developer: Xtol
Scanner: Epson V600
Photoshop: Curves, Healing Brush (spotting)
Cropping: None
The new growth slowly re-engulfs the recently revealed monument in the cemetery at Arnos Vale reclaiming it as it's own again. The metaphor of the broken column here with added poignancy through the actions of nature and the light glimpsed through the forest beyond. .
This watch is a simple, inexpensively-made pocket watch that was given to me as a best man gift.
The second hand fell off right around the time when said friend was already having marital troubles of a severe nature that eventually resulted in an expedient divorce. The face (dial) of the watch went crooked and rotated around the time that my relationship was slowly falling apart and in both cases, there was pretty much nothing I could do about it.
The watch is now fixed. Life eventually fixes itself, but on its own timetable and the impatient must work very hard to distract themselves while it does so.
Young with a dire future. Deeply sad eyes.
William-Adolphe Bouguereau, artist
French, 1825 - 1905
The Broken Pitcher, 1891
oil on canvas
53 x 33 (134.6 x 83.8 cm)
Gift of M.H. de Young 53162
To understand the process behind this image follow this link to the photoset.
It's worth reading, to give some context.
[This photo was actually taken during the day.]