Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Summary 20




Today is the twentieth consecutive day of posting on DustyBrine.  I had it in mind for a while now to mark this day with a summary posting.  If I can keep up the pace I’ll do it again in another twenty days.

The simple format established on the first day was to write in general about the confluence of continental and oceanic.  Yellow Chinese dust, settling into the briny, blue East China Sea that laps up against the Koreas, and Japan.  Dirt that settles, water that sloshes on to every part of the globe.  I want to push forward ideas explored in “The Seven Deadly Starbucks” (7DS).  In that work I looked at China’s emergence and what it meant for regional relations.  Within any given day’s time I want to pick up disparate fragments from that work and force them in one angle or another, in order to strengthen and fashion the main themes. 

And 7DS is about the region from my view.  I want to discuss the work that I am reading, and the music I am listening to and colors I am seeing, from my perch in Beijing.  Beginning with the first entry, each posting leverages a few recurring effects.  Every entry introduces a Chinese cheng yu, which are always four character set phrases used in Classical Chinese and still popular in contemporary vernacular.  Four characters which together pack volumes of meaning and tradition.  I tend to leverage the very helpful online Chinese-English dictionary at www.mdbg.net
 
Music complements my life at when I work, when I exercise, when I play.  It is perhaps the closest touch point I’ve known to the divine.  I introduce at least one piece of music, and discuss something that I am listening to, with every post.  Reading books is gradually becoming an anachronism.  I am proudly old fashioned and always have a few physical books I’m making my way through.  I carry them with me wherever I go like talismans and place them strategically around the house, such as the stand in the master bathroom.  But how rare it is that we actually get to discuss books with anyone, beyond simply stating a title, showing the physical copy, mentioning a theme.  This blog then, should be a place to elaborate on books and articles that inspire.

I don’t think of myself as a photographer, but I have always captured my life with photographs.  In the past, of course, we’d put physical photos into photo albums or more likely into a cardboard box that was kept in the basement, after the last move.   I have a digital photo frame in my house on constant rotation and it is a lovely mnemonic for all the trips and birthdays and balls one has attended.  But in seeing ones “work” regularly one begins to develop a more critical eye as to what one wants to capture, henceforth.  And, with the simple features now available on “Camera Plus” or simply there in iPhoto, it is easy to exaggerate a mood and bleed out expression with intensity.  And so, every post, as you may have noticed, will have two photos. 

Beyond that, I am free. 


So, in summary:

Chengyu introduced:

1.     人山人海 rénshānrénhǎi:  a multitude / vast crowd
2.     埃落定  chén'āiluòdìng:  the dust settles (idiom) / to settle down / to have decided on a certain conclusion / complicated things become clear in the end
3.     惊弓之 jīnggōngzhīniǎo:  lit. a bird startled by the mere twang of a bow (idiom) / fig. sb who frightens easily, due to past experiences
4.     看破红尘kānpòhóngchén:   to see through the world of mortals (idiom, of Buddhist monk) / disillusioned with human society / to reject the world for a monastic life
5.     城市bāowéi chéngshì:  To surround / to encircle / to hem in / to cut off the town.
6.     事半功倍shìbàngōngbèi:  Half the work, twice the effect; the right approach saves effort and leads to better results
7.     横征暴  héngzhēngbàoliǎn:  to tax by force and extort levies (idiom); to screw taxes out of the people by force
8.     仁民  Rénmín'àiwù:  Mencius quote:  love to all creatures (universal benevolence)
9.     独一无二 dúyīwú'èr:  unique and unmatched (idiom); unrivalled / nothing compares with it
10. 孰能生巧  Shúnéngshēngqiǎo:  with familiarity you learn the trick (idiom); practice makes perfect
11. 众生 pǔjìzhòngshēng:  universal mercy and succor (idiom); the Buddha's infinite power and mercy
12. 而不 huá'érbùshí:  flower but no fruit (idiom); handsome exterior but hollow inside / flashy
13. 血肉横  xuèròuhéngfēi:   flesh and blood flying (idiom); carnage / people blown to pieces
14. 早出晚  zǎochūwǎnguīto leave early and return late (idiom)
15. 忍无可忍  rěnwúkěrěn:  more than one can bear (idiom); at the end of one's patience / the last straw
16. 含商咀征  hánshāngjǔzhēng:  permeated with beautiful music (idiom)
17. 此起彼伏  cǐqǐbǐfú:  up here, down there (idiom); to rise and fall in succession / no sooner one subsides, the next arises / repeating continuously / occurring again and again (of applause, fires, waves, protests, conflicts, uprisings etc)
18. 料事如神  Liàoshìrúshén:  to prophesy with supernatural accuracy (idiom) / to have an incredible foresight
19. 多愁善感  duōchóushàngǎn:  melancholy and moody (idiom); depressed personality



Music Introduced:
  • Dexter Gordon “Soul Sister” from “Dexter Calling”, 1961
  • Hank Mobley  “Ultramarine” from “Hank Mobley and his All Stars” , 1957
  • Donald Byrd “Ghana” from “Byrd in Flight, 1960
  • Ebo Taylor “Aba Yaa”, 1977
  • The Beatles “Tomorrow Never Knows” from “Revolver”, 1966
  • Lord Salmons “Great in 68’”,  1968
  • The Jamaicans “Baba Boom”, 1967
  • Niney the Observer “Blood and Fire”, 1970
  • The Dead Kennedy’s “California Uber Alles” from Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables,  1979
  • Gil Evans, “La Nevada” from “Out of the Cool”, 1960
  • Sinead O’Connor “Nothing Compares to You”, 1990
  • Miley Cyrus “Wrecking Ball”, 2013
  • Santana “Persuasion” from “Santana”, 1969
  • The Damned “Anti Pope” from “Machine Gun Etiquette”, 1979
  • Charles Mingus “Jelly Roll” from “Mingus Ah Um”, 1959
  • Kenny Dorham “Trompeta Toccata”, 1964
  • Willie Colon “Se Baila Mejor” from “Guisando”, 1969
  • Ali Akbar Khan “Goojari Todi”, 1971
  • Dinah Washington “Early Morning Blues” & “You Can Depend on Me”, 1947
  • Gusatvo Ceradi, “Bocando”, 1999
  • Yiannis Xilouris  “Cretan Traditional Melodies with the Lute” (Years unknown)
  • King Sunny Ade “Ori Mimi Maje N’te” from “Gems from the Classic Years 1967 -1974”
  • George Frideric Handel, “Xerxes”, 1738
  • Boards of Canada “Aquarius” from “Music Has a Right to Children”, 1998
  • The Who “Melancholia” from “The Who Sell Out”, 1967.



Reading introduced:
  • Christopher Ford article “If China Ruled”, 2013
  • Fernand Braudel "The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II", 1949
  • Cormac McCarthy  “Blood Meridian”, 1985
  • Qian Yanchi “Mao, Man Not God” , 1992
  • John Chernoff “African Rhythm and African Sensibility”,  1981
  • Chris Marquis and Zoe Yang article “Maoism in China”, 2013
  • Hannah Arendt “Eichmann in Jerusalem” ,1963
  • Mencius, 372 – 289 BC
  • Maya Angelou “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”,1969
  • Sinead O’Connor, ‘Open Letter to Miley Cyrus’, published in “The Guardian” 2013
  • The Spoke:  “Amazing Street Posters” 2013
  • Peter Lavezzoli “The Dawn of Indian Music in the West”, 2007
  • Ernst Hemmingway “Moveable Feast”, 1964
  • Mary Renault “The King Must Die”, 1958
  • Roger Cohen “Greek Ship Turning”  New York Times editorial, 2013
  • Menander “The Girl from Samos” approximately 315 BC
  • John Julius Norwich “A Short History of Byzantium”, 1998
  • Philip Mansel “Constantinople: City of the World's Desire, 1453-1924”,  1998
  • Edward Said “Orientalism”, 1978
  • Orhan Pamuk “Istanbul: Memories and the City” , 2006


Photos:
Go have a look.




No comments:

Post a Comment