The Post-Apocalyptic Techno Poem

...I'd totally go to see this.

[sigh]


Maybe it'll travel to some other institutions in the summer.

In a move that was probably against my better planning skills, I joined foxxydancr and our friend A.O. for a quick jaunt down to D.C. to visit some museums, and although the timing was perhaps not the best, the chance to look at the pieces that make all this struggle and exhaustion worth it was vitally timed. I think we were all getting worn to a frazzle.

As we all had different interests, we split up early in the day to see the things that we each most valued. I betook myself to the Freer and Sackler Galleries in the morning to see an exhibition on The Tale of Shuten Doji. It was a wonderful gathering of the museums' materials (screens, scrolls, and prints) on that subject matter; a medieval folktale about the quest of Minamoto no Yorimitsu and his men to find the hidden dwelling of the ogre Shuten Doji and rescue the beautiful court women whom the ogre had kidnapped before they are all devoured.

I enjoy monster imagery very much (as everyone knows), but this was the first time I was able to view a completely illustrated monster tale. Previously, having viewed mainly ukiyo-e prints, I had mainly seen works where only one specific scene is presented.

Other works on display from the collection included an exquisite sampling of contemporary ceramic wares, mainly from artisans in Ishikawa and Yamanashi prefectures, an exhibition on the art of gold-lacquer ceramic repair, Kamakura period examples of Ryokai mandara (Two Worlds Mandala), and some very fine examples of Heian period Buddhist sculpture. I was very, very pleased with what I was able to see.

The traveling aspect of the trip was rejuvenating as well. The three of us gossiped, philosophized, and joked our way down and back. We discovered that we were all in accord on the subjects of mountain dew, Romeo and Juliet, the number of strollers there are in the world, the awesomeness of foxxydancr's friends, and any number of things that I have since forgotten.

One thing we were not in accord with, however, was driving style. But we lived through it. I am of the opinion (California-like) that the acceptance of each other's driving style is a necessary stage in the growth of friendships. (^_-)

Thanks for a rockin' time, compatriots!

Definitely a meat-and-potatoes guy, ne?

;>

( Super Sick Visuals Behind the Cut )

And (no visuals, but still very damn cool):
The news that the Japanese have recently discovered a huge cache of mokkan (wooden tablets), numbering in the tens of thousands, in the ruins of the Heijô Palace. Heijôkyô, located roughly in the area of present-day Nara, was the capital of Japan from 710 to 740, and again from ca. 744 to 784. Previous finds of mokkan have served as valuable sources of documentation that have helped researchers in such pursuits as the reconstructing of the casting process for the Great Buddha at Tôdaiji. There's no telling what these tablets will reveal.
Via.

Jean Dubuffet would be so proud...



See more at passiveaggressivenotes.com.

I promised a fuller analysis of the play Equus in an earlier blog post. So, here it is.

Right out of the gate, let's dispense with the Daniel Radcliffe stuff. He gave a riveting performance; a fearless performance. It demonstrated his talent and drive, and it convinced me that he will grow into a force to be reckoned with in the years to come. Radcliffe is clearly determined to make his way as an actor, and he has the tools to achieve his goal.

He wasn't the only actor to give such a strong and brave performance, however. One of the things that struck me as I watched the narrative unfold, was that the hubbub surrounding Radcliffe's nudity had eclipsed much about the play itself and the other players. Anna Camp, who portrays Jill Mason, also delivered an astonishing, bold, and captivating performance in the nude. The fact that I was completely unaware of the brazen female nudity in this play before it occurred was striking to me. In fact, I could go off onto a fascinating (and, no doubt, animated) tangent about the gendered treatment of nudity in mainstream media and arts, but I won't. You're welcome.

The play itself rang true on many levels: I believed in the psychosis of the main character; in the events in his life that led to its inflammation; in the people around him who either helped or hindered his development. However, for all these well-treated and poignantly presented factors, the play was--for me--highly flawed.

The main problem, as I saw it, was a literary failing. The playwright, Peter Schaefer (perhaps best known for the incomparably brilliant Amadeus), had a point to make. And he was going to make it, come hell or high water, and he wielded the anvil of prose to make his damn point.

The point was this:
a lack of passion can be as destructive to one's life as a surplus.

Fair enough. But in the illumination of this point, the playwright forced one of his characters to behave in a way that was not believable. The other main focus in Equus, the psychiatrist who treats the disturbed boy, was absurd. If he had been a failure, a man who had tried over and over to save the sanity of disturbed children and met defeat, it might have been believable for him to have a crisis of conscience. But this character was an unequivocal success. He was well-known for having saved scores of children, for having led them out of the darkened, labyrinthine hollows into the light of reason. I cannot believe a man like that would doubt the utility of his work simply because his marriage was a failure.

But as I said, Schaefer wanted to make a point about passion. And make it he did. Just not nearly as well as he did in Amadeus. ;> And anyway, we're--none of us--perfect. Equus still has much to recommend it. It was highly thought-provoking, and this production was beautifully produced and performed. I am glad to have experienced it.

traveling with the ghost has collected a bunch of images of "mock corpses" on their site. I'm not entirely sure how to feel about them. First of all, I'm not sure if they're meant to represent "mock corpses" or real dead people. (And traveling with the ghost doesn't appear to be sure either.) Second of all, each example is a woman (although the breakdown of male to female artists is basically even) and a number of the images are violent. I'd be interested in learning about the artistic intent behind these images, because I wouldn't want to dismiss them out of hand. (Although Alexander Denomay's Break-Up--collected in part 1--seems to cry out for dismissal.) But it is striking that every single one of these images is of women. Every. Single. One. (Granted, this may have been a choice on the part of the blogger.)

Japanese handscrolls on the nine stages of purification of a human corpse, painted from the thirteenth through nineteenth centuries, often feature female bodies as the subject of the decomposition studies. It'd be interesting to look at all the extent examples to see if there were any versions produced that showed a male body. I wouldn't be surprised if they were all of women, or overwhelmingly of women. You can view images from an early nineteenth-century version (copy of a late eighteenth-century version) here and read an interesting article on the subject here.

Dead women have always been a popular motif in art it seems. Anyone know of comparative pre-modern Western examples? I'd appreciate a chance to compare the two.

One Hundred View of Mock Corpses:
Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
Part 4.
Part 5.

Via.

I recently discovered this very whimsical illustration artist, Nakajima Rie, and fell absolutely in love.

I adore my Google reader.



via.

In the Kashiwagi chapter of The Tale of Genji, the son of Genji's good friend catches a glimpse of Genji's wife--the Third Princess--when she raises her screen to chase after a stray kitten. This glimpse of the young girl is more than the young man can stand, and he begins an illicit (and, it must be noted, forced) affair with her.

The image of the girl with a kitten has since been regarded as a classic motif of sexual promise in Japanese art. Recently, I came across a number of fantastic 1930s examples from shin hanga artists Takahashi Hiroaki [Shôtei] (1871-1945) and Ishikawa Toraji (1875-1964).

( Images Under the Cut )

Via Pink Tentacle.

The Japanese photographer, Sato Jun Ichi, has collected a wealth of photographs from over a ten-year period that documents Japan`s sophisticated (and incredibly aesthetic) flood-control infrastructure.

Practical, and ofttimes poetic, these varying floodgates are a marvel. Would that we had anything nearly as awesome in the States.

Check out the photographer`s own site, here, for more images. And expect regular updates to resume tomorow (if I remember to bring my jumpdrive files).