It’s nasty out there
today. Gotta say it. You can see it in the headlights when you
drive the car before the dawn. The smog
swirls in front of the beams. A while
back I wrote about the moon being full.
Who knows if its even out there on the morning like this. I looked and our friends in the city
government have finally raised the alert level to orange. Hmm.
It needs to be wretched for three days straight before they go all the
way to red. Then they pull half the cars
off the road, cancel schools . . .
One can understand officials preference to tamp things down
at all cost. Once you agree that things
are hazardous you acknowledge that your hair is on fire. And as Niney the Observer once
commented: “there is no more water, to
out the fire.” I was just over in
Shandong. There are ninety seven million
people next door. You can stop all
traffic and all heating and all construction in Beijing for a month. Will it really matter? If neighboring provinces proceed with the
industrial revolution.
If this were a representative democracy, this would be the fucking election issue. This would be a throw-the-bums out
moment. There is no such valve
here. So once you admit you have a
hazardous, life-threatening problem, that you can’t really do much about in the
short term, you essentially concede that you are impotent. That’s not part of the Party’s platform. My wife confirms that the Chinese web,
weixin, etc., are all alight with talk about this. I’m on the Beijing Municipal site and I don’t
see anything that draws attention, loud and clear, to a code orange
hazard.
To get my mind off, I’ll turn to what I was going to write
about, which is a fascinating article from the University of Bedforshire, which
a friend shared with me. A professor
there appears to have finally cracked the heretofore undecipherable Voynich Manuscript,
which has befuddled scholars since its discovery by a Polish book dealer 102
years ago. Derided as a hoax, leveraged
by gaming companies and Hollywood, this 莫名其妙[1] was verified as a true medieval document
but described by some as “academic suicide” to try to decode. Professor Stephen Bax however, used
techniques of isolating identifiable renderings, such as stars or plants to
derive consistency.
“I hit on the idea of identifying
proper names in the text, following historic approaches which successfully
deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs and other mystery scripts, and I then used
those names to work out part of the script,” explained Professor Bax, “
Sounds like the full effort will still take quite some time
and he has invited other scholars to join him in the work, that is, thanks to
him, no longer suicidal. But it will be
interesting to finally learn if there are any real insights six hundred years
on from medieval pharmacopeia, or if perhaps there were other items being
conveyed, as well. I told my older
daughter about it as we were driving through dirty aquarium this morning. She asked what they finally figured out it
was about. I told her it was apparently
and early Chinese menu.
I was on about Blue Mitchell yesterday and I’m not anywhere
near through the trove of stuff I’ve found of his, there on Rdio. Trying to listen now but, to compound the
clogged air the internet is abysmally slow today, as well. I’m not sure what’s up. Perhaps the data packets are also
winded.
This morning at the gym . . . yes, I still went, I had on a
tune from an absolutely fabulous disc called “African Scream Contest” which
doesn’t do this sampler of Benin funk from the early seventies justice. Yes, gents are often yelling, in James
Brown-like intensity but the selections are each, exquisite. The tune “Ou C’est Lui Ou C’est Moi” which I
think translates to something like “Is it him or is it me?” Vincent Ahehehinnou also the lead singer of
the incomparable: Orchestre Poly-rythmo de Cotonou is credited with the tune,
which is by no means the apex of the disc.
I tried to listen closely to what it was about this Vodun “sound” that
is so infectious as I did my stair master thing. This may just be the tightest of the tight
for West African rhythmic architecture. Marveling
while the bongo and the trap set, a cowbell and the cowry shell netted gourd,
just lock it down for ten minutes. Everyone fused in unison throughout. The
Nigerian funk I love from over the boarder the same time seems almost loose, in
comparison. http://www.wnur.org/interview-with-vincent-ahehehinnou-of-
One day, I’m gonna head to Cotonou and check it out for
myself. Something must remain, of the
distinction of this time. What might be
easier this summer is to head to New Haven and Yale University and have look at
the Voynich Manuscript. Will let you
know tomorrow, if we’ve slipped over into an official code-red.
[1] mòmíngqímiào: unfathomable mystery (idiom); subtle and
ineffable / unable to make head or tail of it / boring (e.g. movie)
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