SOUVENIR ISSUE

22 July 1969 The Sun  

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Otagaki Rengetsu (Lotus Moon) and the enlightenment project : from mud to the moon

"We choose to go to the moon..."
- President Kennedy, 12 September 1962 

Today is the 50th anniversary of the 21 July 1969 moon landing. From the FIAPCE Earth Archive, some front pages of The Sun, Melbourne :

17 July 1969 The Sun  

18 July 1969 The Sun  

19 July 1969 The Sun  

21 July 1969 The Sun  

22 July 1969 The Sun  

            collection FIAPCE  

Otagaki Rengetsu (Lotus Moon)
enlightenment project : from mud to the moon

The following text is from the website of the
Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens.

Otagaki Rengetsu (1791-1875)  was born in the spring of 1791, and was like the secret daughter of a geisha and Todou Yoshikiyo, chief retainer of the Iga-Ueno fief. She was soon adopted into the samurai-class family of Otagaki Tsune’emon and his wife Nawa, and was given the name Nobu. She spent her early childhood on the grounds of Chion-in, head temple of the Jodo sect of Buddhism, where she began training in literature, poetry and martial arts. At age eight, she was sent to serve as a lady-in-waiting at Kameoka castle outside of Kyoto. There she spent nearly a decade studying calligraphy, dancing, flower arranging and tea ceremony – all the appropriate cultural adornments of the refined, yet narrow, world of the upper class elite.

Around the age of 33, heartbroken and in a seemingly endless cycle of personal tragedy and changing fortunes (as a result of the loss of her step-parents, two husbands and the death of all five of her children) Nobu renounced her worldly existence and took formal vows to become a Buddhist nun at Chion-in temple. Symbolizing her transition and devotion to the path of the Buddha, she took the name Rengetsu, or Lotus Moon.
  
At the age of 42, alone and without resources, Rengetsu moved to the Okazaki district of Kyoto and took up pottery making to support herself. Appreciation for her work grew, despite the fact that she was self-taught, because of her insightful, often witty, poetry that she inscribed on her pieces. Rengetsu’s distinctive, rough-surfaced, lop-sided, hand-molded vases, tea bowls, and sake bottles, incised with her spare verse in exquisite kana script, imbued each piece with a truly unique spirit. In fact, Rengetsu’s work became so popular that many imitated, and even copied, her work leading to the rise of Rengetsu-yaki, or Rengetsu-ware, that continued to be produced even years after her death. Her rich artistic legacy emerges not only from her eclectic and prolific body of work, but also from a life spent in deep meditation on the illusory nature of existence. 
  
Rengetsu’s artistic productivity reached its peak when she was in her late 70s, after which she became increasingly fragile battling several illnesses. She spent her last days meditating, chanting and reciting mantras, and refused any medications. She died in seclusion on December 10, 1875. Upon her request, Rengetsu’s friend and long-time collaborator, Tomioka Tessai, had prepared her funeral shroud by painting an image of a lotus and the moon on it. In the last years of her life, Rengetsu composed a beautiful and haunting farewell poem, or jisei, the final version of which was buried with her :

Negawaku ha
Nochi no hachisu no
Hana o ue ni
Kumoranu tsuki o
Miru yoshi mo kana

How I hope to pass away
While sitting on
The lotus flower
Gazing up at the moon
In a cloudless sky





  sake cup by Rengetsu                                   collection FIAPCE

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 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

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#SixYearsTooLong

It is six years since Kevin Rudd toughened the then government’s stance against people coming to Australia seeking asylum : OFF SHORE DETENTION … automatic, arbitrary, compulsory and indefinite. 
Australia wide rallies today 19th July will mark this shameful anniversary. 

click image above to find an event near you  

 read more here at : The Monthly Today

   5pm vigil every Friday, Daylesford, Victoria  

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 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

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Label Drummers

click image to enlarge  

 Above, a lone Label Drummer, early 20th century, 
 and below, 21st century Label Drummers of TAR.

Theatre of the Actors of Regard  

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 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

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Der Blaue Regard

Theatre of the Actors of Regard  

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 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

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Title Dance|r : Struttin' With Some TARbq

 Struttin' With Some Barbeque (Lil Hardin)

 Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five (Lil Hardin, piano)

Lillian "Lil" Hardin Armstrong (née Hardin; February 3, 1898 – August 27, 1971) was a jazz pianist, composer, arranger, singer, and bandleader. She was the second wife of Louis Armstrong, with whom she collaborated on many recordings in the 1920s. Her compositions include Struttin' with Some Barbecue.  - Wikipedia

 Raku Ryonyu (1756-1834) Scrollin'...

 Raku Ryonyu (1756-1834) Stampin'...             

 Raku Ryonyu (1756-1834) plate with matrix ideogram

Finally, some speculative etymology. I think with affection of the Czech novelist Josef Skvorecky, who wrote in his novel THE COWARDS (or his novella THE BASS SAXOPHONE) of his difficulties with jazz-related English (he was a youthful amateur tenor player during the Second World War): encountering “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue” for the first time, he was puzzled by the word-by-word translation: could it really mean “Walking pompously with an animal carcass roasted whole”?

I have the same feelings about “Drop that sack!” Is it really an old-time racially-based joke about chicken-stealing, or did it mean, “Let’s get out of here” or “Get rid of that unattractive person”?

It adds something to the resonance of the words that DROP THAT SACK was one of the two titles that Louis recorded “anonymously” with Lil’s Hot Shots for a competing label while he was under contract to OKeh — trying to hide Louis’s conception and sound would be like pretending the great Chicago Fire wasn’t burning . . . . but I wonder if there are hidden meanings to the expression, just as we later learned that “Struttin’ with some barbecue” was a pre-PC way of saying, “Walking proudly with my beautiful girlfriend.”

- from JAZZ LIVES

Theatre of the Animations of Regard  

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 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

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Vatican - Gilead

SPOILER ALERT : The Handmaid's Tale S.3 Ep.6 

Tommaso Siciliano's 1585 Vatican ceiling fresco
The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism

...figured again this week in the latest episode of The Handmaid's Tale.

Theatre of the Actors of Regard  

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 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

 someone looks at something... 

         

 LOGOS/HA HA

    

What did you do in the Sign Wars, daddy?

At an intersection +

Pootilla, Victoria, Australia  

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 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

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TAR break dance comp | Do The Shuffle | Canberra, 1991

Screaming Teens Mob Paintings 
continued

Theatre of the Actors of Regard  
photo Peter Morris  

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 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

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If a t falls in a fores

detail 

On not being able to see 

the forest
      for the trees
the wood
      for the word 
the see
      for thee, calligraphy

- after Issa

    Theatre of the Actors of Regard  
 collection FIAPCE  

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 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

 someone looks at something... 

         

 LOGOS/HA HA

    

SLOW-LOOK v. Theatre of the AcceleraTARTARTARTARTARTARTARTARs of Regard

We appreciated this morning's ABC.RN Mine Field discussion of "slow journalism" en regard :

What if the greatest threat to a free media was from within?

Our lives are saturated with 'news'; but far from creating informed citizens, this is producing forgetful, inattentive citizens. Megan Le Masurier joins us to discuss whether "slow journalism" could help us remember what matters?

Last week we discussed the moral and political principles laid bare by the Australian Federal Police’s raids on the home of a News Corp journalist and the Sydney offices of the ABC. But such external threats to the 'free' press are not the only, or even the most dire, threats to the proper functioning of the media in a healthy democracy.

The threat posed by the AFP raids is the threat feared by George Orwell: external pressure, obfuscation or intimidation by a censorious, overbearing, totalitarian state. But there was another threat, no less real, articulated by Aldous Huxley: there is no need for the state to censor the truth, when the 'capitalist propaganda industry' can simply bury the truth in an avalanche of the trivial, the salacious and the manufactured. Why censor the truth, when over time people can no longer tell the difference between the true, the trivial and the manufactured? Then throw speed and the ubiquity of smart phones into the mix, and you have the makings of a democratic catastrophe.

Under conditions of speed, of instantaneity, and information overload, can journalism still fulfil its ethical vocation?

Following upon that came this email text and image from QAGOMA :

TOUR: SLOW-LOOK
1.30pm, Sun 30 Jun
GOMA | Free

Look slowly and closely at one artwork by Margaret Olley and Ben Quilty with QAGOMA curators and discover connections between the artist’s work and lives. Auslan interpreted.

    Theatre of the Actors of Regard  

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 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

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Veils of TAR | World Refugee Day

The Metropolitan Museum Shrouded a Mark Chagall Painting to Draw Attention to World Refugee Day

The museum shrouded the painting to ask the question: “What would the Met’s walls look like if there were no refugees?” Works by other famous artists including Max Ernst, Piet Mondrian, and Mark Rothko are labeled as works “made by a refugee.”

- Hyperallergic article here


 The shrouding of Marc Chagall’s painting “The Lovers”

courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art  

   

We are reminded of Yosa Buson's Veils of Regard.
 

    Theatre of the Actors of Regard  
collection FIAPCE  

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 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

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TAR Label ] after A Calder ( lobsTAR TRAp

    Theatre of the Actors of Regard  

 Label      Code               0132129
                Artist               ********
                Title                 Alexander Calder's 'Lobster Trap and Fish 
                                        Tail', a hanging mobile commissioned by the
                                        advisory Committee for the stairwell of the 
                                        Museum's new building in 1939 
                                        (photograph 1949)
                Location          Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
                City                  New York
                Country           USA
                Period/Style   1900/1945
                Genre              Documentary

                Note                 PA315. 

                Credits            Digital image, 
                                        The Museum of Modern Art, New York/
                                        Scala, Florence 

                Rights and restrictions 

    Theatre of the Actors of Regard  

 Label        Title          detail

                                    A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

                                    someone looks at something...

                                    LOGOS/HA HA

                  Medium    A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

                                    someone looks at something...

                                    CULTURAL CONSUMPTION PRODUCTION

                  Date          - 20 June 2019 -

                  Artist        Theatre of the Actors of Regard 

TARfest19 : Behavioural Awareness Officers Quell Screaming Teens

 [Intro: Suffa]
 For my people in the front
 In the nosebleed section

 [Hilltop Hoods : The Nosebleed Section]

 [Verse 1: Suffa]
 This is for the heads that's loving the mix
 My people in the front, all covered in spit
 Batter's in the box, Suffa to pitch
 Hilltop Hoods all up in this bitch...

courtesy AAA_ArtArchiveAustralia  

 [Verse 2: Suffa] ...

 This is a comeback, tongue that’s sharp like a thumbtack
 It's so tight James is saying, "Give my funk back"
 One track, eight track, ADAT, residual noise
 Man, fuck that, we clean with the digital toys
 I'm the Apache, you're failing to match me
 Throw your hands in the air like you're hailing a taxi
 And move to the funk flow, you stepping? Are you drunk, bro?
 This is for my peeps and the freaks in the front row

    Theatre of the Authorities of Regard  

 [Verse 3: Suffa]

 People don’t complain if Suffa’s in here
 And you’re in the front row all covered in beer
 And club owners don't say, 

    "The place is wrecked, it's your fault"
 If the roof is on fire, it's an electrical fault
 Man, I bet you all bolt when I bring it live

 Like Friday night footy, in my hoody I can hide...

    Theatre of the Authors of Reaction  

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 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

 someone looks at something... 

         

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Three Words

 Each Friday at 5pm in Daylesford, Victoria ...

 ... protest continues against the offshore detention

 of refugees to Australia. 

 Last evening, 

one driver shouted,                 

"It's just three words."  

   Theatre for the Advancement of Refugees  

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 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/

 someone looks at something... 

         

 LOGOS/HA HA

   

Open letter to the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Members of Parliament :

The Australian Federal Police raids on the home of News Corporation Australia journalist Annika Smethurst and on the offices of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation represent a grave threat to press freedom in Australia.

We welcome the Prime Minister’s stated commitment to freedom of the press and openness to discuss the concerns that have been raised.

A healthy democracy cannot function without its media being free to bring to light uncomfortable truths, to scrutinise the powerful and inform our communities. Investigative journalism cannot survive without the courage of whistleblowers, motivated by concern for their fellow citizens, who seek to bring to light instances of wrongdoing, illegal activities, fraud, corruption and threats to public health and safety.

These are issues of public interest, of the public’s right to know. Whistleblowers and the journalists who work with them are entitled to protection, not prosecution. Truth-telling is being punished.

The raids, a raft of recent national security laws, and the prosecutions of whistleblowers Richard Boyle, David McBride and Witness K all demonstrate the public’s right to know is being harmed. Truth-telling is being punished.

It is also clear from the global response to the recent raids that Australia’s proud reputation around the world as a free and open society is under threat.

We urge Parliament to legislate changes to the law to recognise and enshrine a positive public interest protection for whistleblowers and for journalists. Without these protections Australians will be denied important information it is their right as citizens to have.

We urge you to take prompt action to protect our democracy for all Australians.

Signed,

Michael Bachelard, The Sydney Morning Herald/The Age; Richard Baker, The Age; Mark Baker, Melbourne Press Club; Barrie Cassidy, ABC; Phillip Coorey, The Australian Financial Review; Annabel Crabb, ABC; David Crowe, The Sydney Morning Herald/The Age; Miranda Devine, The Daily Telegraph; Malcolm Farr, news.com.au; Adele Ferguson, The Age/The Sydney Morning Herald; Marina Go, Director, The Walkley Foundation; Michelle Grattan, The Conversation; Peter Greste, Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom; Claire Harvey, The Sunday Telegraph; Tim Lester, Seven Network; Isabel Lo, Media Diversity Australia: John Lyons, ABC; David Marr, Guardian Australia; Chris Masters, Investigative Journalist; Kate McClymont, The Sydney Morning Herald; Nick McKenzie, The Age; Karen Middleton, The Saturday Paper; Katharine Murphy, Guardian Australia; Paul Murphy, MEAA; Laurie Oakes, Retired Political Journalist; Kerry O’Brien, Chair, The Walkley Foundation; Matt Peacock, ABC Alumni; Mark Riley, Seven News; Leigh Sales, ABC; Niki Savva, The Australian; Tory Shepherd, The Advertiser; Marcus Strom, MEAA; Sandra Sully, Ten News; Lenore Taylor, Guardian Australia; Paige Taylor, The Australian; Hedley Thomas, The Australian; Laura Tingle, ABC; Peter Tyndall, bLOGOS/HA HA; Lisa Wilkinson, The Project

To co-sign this letter go to :

https://www.meaa.org/campaigns/press-freedom/

    free pencil movement    

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