Monday, November 4, 2013

11_05_13 = 39, Not 40




I hope you’re sitting down, as you read this, for what I am about to write will no doubt shock you.  I have goofed.  I was imagining a bit of a break for myself today but instead have made twice the work for my tired mind.  I would like to say that I have 事半功倍[1] but we have already introduced this particular chengyu week’s ago, so let’s just say that I feel a bit 愚昧无知[2]

If you look back a few posts you’ll notice something called “Summary 20.”   I arbitrarily decided to summarize a few items that are regularly featured on DustyBrine, every twentieth posting.  This daily pace is a torrid clip and I want to ritualize a bit of harvesting.  Certain features on this blog will be consistent every time. Every post has at least one chengyu, like those listed above.  Chengyu are Chinese idiomatic expressions, generally involving four characters that often harken back to classical Chinese but are very important in contemporary vernacular.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu  Look for one, and the footnote explanation, every time.  And where appropriate I’ll make sure there’s a link to more information, like I just did.

The dust of DustyBrine is anchored in the abundant yellow soil of continental China.  (Would that the dust would stay anchored rather than stalking my and my family’s lungs, particulate.)  The chengyu are a rigor, a discipline to always ground these postings in the local soil, regardless of where we fly off to like Selcuk, Turkey or Brownsville Brooklyn.  The brine of course, is the sea.  That interface of dry yellow, continental soil and salty blue, oceanic spray is the crossroads that this space invokes.  Welcome. 



Historically China never looked to the sea for much beyond salt, seafood, and the elixir of life.  Dangers came on horseback from the west and the northwest.  (Mongols, Khitian, Turkic, etc.) Civilizations worthy of the name, things ineffable, inexplicable, but intellectually rigorous, also came from the west (Indian and Tibetan Buddhism).  When the European gunboats finally did arrive by sea, the mandarins were flummoxed.  All that could be gainfully learned was there to be studied in the Classics.  And the Classics always spoke of threats by land from the west.  Threats did not come by sea. 

Threats and opportunities abound in the brine.  Contemporary China’s gaze is now firmly fixed on the Pacific for a myriad of reasons.  And as she begins to build a blue water navy and project her power beyond her shores, she runs up first against those immediate neighbors, who are separated by sea but united under a civilizational arc.  Japan and the Koreas are the steel to China’s flint that ignites this particular meeting point with excitement, creativity and grave danger.  Dustybrine lights quickest, most frequently at these neighborhood-meeting points.  And yellow dust blows around the world and salty sea covers the planet and the metaphoric crossroads is manifest, everywhere at once, sparking off wherever it is you're reading from.

Accordingly, whatever I read or watch in an interconnected world is fair game to reference with a hand on the lightning rod.  Furthermore all this dry, salty drama should be photographed for posterity, at least as long as the iPhone is charged, and so I will add two photos of whatever I deem fit, with each post, as well.  Finally, every single day I am listening to music that choreographs my North Asian life.  I need music when I am pushing myself to exercise, I want music when I sit down to write, and I need a different accompaniment when I’m I the car or making dinner.  Music is the aural blessing that sanctifies so much in my world.  So we will speak about it.

Today is easy.  I was listening to the pianist Sonny Clark’s 1957 debut release “Dial S for Sonny.”   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial_%22S%22_for_Sonny The tune “Shoutin’ On a Riff” ” is a hard driving bop groove and chopping chicken I found the trumpet solo had grabbed ahold of my ears.  Who is that?  The tune’s historical feel meant it was probably Donald Byrd or Lee Morgan.  But it was flashy and aggressive in a way that didn’t speak to either gent.  I wondered if it was Freddie Hubbard but this would be too early.  I looked and it was, in fact Art Farmer, whose name I knew but about whom I knew nothing.  Rido (www.rdio.com) is a fine online music service and the rest of the night and all of today I have been feasting on this gentleman from Council Bluffs, Iowa.  I will have more to say about the man, his flumpet and his twin brother, off in the future.  For now we can consider instead, that dexterous leader of the 1957 set that introduced me to Mssr. Farmer in the first place, Sonny Clark, of Herminie Pennsylvania, who would be dead within six years of his big debut at the tender age of 31.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Clark



Time.  Time, irreplaceable, can be even more precious than water or soil.  I wrote a manuscript this year that I want to publish.  The working title is the “Seven Deadly Starbucks” (7DS) and within I look at each of the seven different “deadly sins” in a different Starbucks across North Asia.  So we look at anger, my anger, the anger of my host country, standing in line in San Li Tun, Beijing.  We look at greed in Hong Kong and sloth in Tokyo, etc. and try to suggest some ironic possibilities for how to improve regional relations given the remarkable rise of Chinese civilization in our lifetime.  The only time we leave the region is to go back home, to New York City where we can safely examine the vilest sin of all, pride. 

And as the Last Poets yell and Sonny Clark probably knew, “time is running out.”  So we will use this daily ritual to forward ideas in this manuscript and push it towards editorial refinement and public release.  If you’ve been tuned in you’ll note we’ve spent some time on anger, lust and gluttony.  Greed and envy are up on deck.

I sat down today with the notion that this was second time we’d reached the twentieth posting mark.  “Summary 40” would be easy to compile and set me free for all my other daily tasks early with time to spare.  But as often happens at the DB crossroads, I ran into Legba, the trickster and he cut out with my time.  I listed out all the chengyu, I listed out all the reading or other media referenced and I listed out all the music profiled.  The parameters were set, and the innovation requirements minimized.  Done early, with the day before me.  But a few posts back in this Blogger interface, I’d inadvertently saved a draft as a post and tallied it improperly.  Today therefore, is only thirty-nine, not forty. 

Tomorrow, then, we’ll summarize the last nineteen.  At least tomorrow’s work is largely done.  And ideally you know a bit more about what I’m trying to do and what to expect if you revisit this crossroads in the future.




[1] shìbàngōngbèi:  Half the work, twice the effect; the right approach saves effort and leads to better results
[2] yúmèiwúzhī:  stupid and ignorant (idiom)



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