David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :
'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)
(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.
so many paths go up from the foothills
but one moon grazes the peak
- Ikkyu (transl. Stephen Berg)
Netsuke depicting Ikkyu and his TAR prop skull
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
The Courtesan Jigoku-dayu and Priest Ikkyu, 1899,
by Mizuno Toshikata (1866-1908)
No One Sees It The Same
The mind flows like water through the four
mindfulnesses never the same.
Buddha realm, Mara's fortress the then and now.
Cold wind, wind-blown snow, moon among the
plum blossoms;
The drinker toys with his cup, the poet hums
a poem.
- Ikkyu (transl. Sonja Arntzen)
*the four mindfulnesses : this is a discipline of meditating on
the "body" to realise its impurity, on "sensation" to realise that the perception of things pleasant and unpleasant is the root of pain, on "thought" to realise its impermanence and on objects"
to realise their absence of self. p. 236 here
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after :
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade
(Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean Paul Marats dargestellt durch die Schauspielgruppe des Hospizes zu Charenton unter Anleitung des Herrn de Sade),
a 1963 play by Peter Weiss.
NGA Online Label :
Sidney Nolan
Carlton, Victoria, Australia 1917 – London, England 1992
Boy and the moon
c.1939-40
- Alternate title
- Moonboy
- Place made
- Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Materials & Technique
- paintings, oil on canvas, mounted on composition board
- Primary insc
- No inscriptions
- Dimensions
- 73.3 h x 88.2 w cm
- framed (overall) 80.1 h x 95 w x 3 d cm
- Acknowledgement
- Purchased 1976
- Accession no
- NGA 76.560
- Image rights
- © Sidney Nolan Trust
NGV Online Label :
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LOGOS/HA HA
] Execution of Moon Boy
by the Citizens Committee of Melbourne (
Medium A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
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CULTURAL CONSUMPTION PRODUCTION
Artist Theatre of the Actors of Regard
Australian fiction writer Gerald Murnane is tipped to win this year's Nobel Prize for Literature. There’s no better time to watch Philip Tyndall’s little-seen 1989 film about Murnane,
Words And Silk: The Imaginary and Real Worlds of Gerald Murnane, which will screen at MIFF in celebration of its 30th anniversary.
"In the Oxford Companion to Australian Film published in 1999, Philip Tyndall's Words and Silk: The Imaginary and Real Worlds of Gerald Murnane – one of my personal all-time favourite Australian films – does not rate a mention. This is sadly symptomatic of how strange, unique, unclassifiable works tend to go underground rather speedily in Australia."
- Adrian Martin ( here )
Before the renewal of interest in Melbourne-born writer Gerald Murnane that followed a 2018 feature article in The New York Times which dubbed him “the greatest living English-language writer most people have never heard of”, as well as his winning the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Border Districts, filmmaker Philip Tyndall (someone looks at something, MIFF 1987) created this inventive hybrid film. Divided into two parts, the first details Murnane’s ‘Imaginary’ world, using abstract images, shapes and textures. In contrast, the second section stays in the ‘Real’ world, where Murnane speaks directly to the camera in a more formal way.
Words And Silk: The Imaginary and Real Worlds of Gerald Murnane is at its heart about Murnane's love of writing and horse racing, built around an interwoven mosaic of still imagery, archival footage, dramatic re-creations and talking head, reflecting the film's fine line between fact and fiction. The result is a poetic, vital study of arguably Australia’s greatest living fiction writer – more compelling today than he ever was. Words And Silk: The Imaginary and Real Worlds of Gerald Murnane is a unique and empathetic portrait of the artist and his creative process. Don’t miss this very rare opportunity to see it on the big screen.
"Gerald Murnane, as he presents himself, is like a modest but furiously noble hero from a Straub-Huillet film: he conjures his struggle with language, with words, with truth and with fiction, his way of forming and retaining images in his mind – by setting down (as he so intensely testifies) one sentence after another. This writing is like a thin red line that separates the author from the terror of some unnameable void, or chaos. Words and Silk, in its own relentless progression from frame to frame, word to word, and image to image, joins forces with Murnane's struggle to express and master that void – and it is a spellbinding spectacle."
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【三輪月底】1778-1860 江戸時代後期の俳人。 安永7年生まれ。尾張名古屋藩の大工。文化8年大工与頭代。はじめ井上士朗,のち竹内塊翁(かいおう)にまなび,名古屋俳壇を指導した。 万延元年5月13日死去。83歳。通称は勝四郎,直九郎など。別号に蓼光庵。里村逸八とも称した。編著に「さみたれ」など。
Miwa moon bottom
(reading)
Miwa Tsukisoko 1788-1860
The late Edo period haiku. Born in Yasunaga 7 years. Owari (end) Carpenter of Nagoya Sakai. 8 years of culture carpenter Yodai. He first taught Inoue Shiro, and later Takeuchi Kouki (Kaiou), and he taught Nagoya Haikan. May 13th died on May 13th. 83 years old. Known as Katsushiro and Naokurou. Another issue Tadekoan to. It is also called Satomura Itohachi. "Samitare" in the editorial book.
collection FIAPCE
TAR moon bottoms
(pointing, after Sengai))
Pay Your Respects To Art, Continually
Fosterville Institute of Applied & Progressive Cultural Experience -1976-
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Once more unto the breach, dear friends,
once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
TARists with Untitled (2006-07) by Anish Kapoor
dedicated to former QAG director Doug Hall, AM
...for there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'
- from 'Henry V' by William Shakespeare
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
TARist with Water-Orb (2018) by Natasha Johns-Messenger
photo by Christian Capurro
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The Age :
Iraqi asylum seeker sews his lips together amid mounting despair at MITA, lawyer says
by Bianca Hall, 23 July 2019
A desperate Iraqi asylum seeker, who has been detained in Australia for seven years, was hospitalised after sewing his lips together at a Melbourne immigration detention centre on Monday night.
Detainees at the troubled Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA) have been left devastated and demanding answers since 23-year-old Abdul Aziz died in mysterious circumstances less than two weeks ago.
Crikey :
A final goodbye to Abdul, the latest man to die in Australian detention
by Rebekah Holt, 24 July 2019
Abdul Aziz, a 23-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, died in detention. Crikey was invited by his family and friends to exclusively bear witness before his body was sent home.
In Memoriam : Abdul Aziz
by Janet, on her ironing board, 19 July 2019
Rural Australians for Refugees, Daylesford.
click image to enlarge
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22 July 1969 The Sun
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"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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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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Above, a lone Label Drummer, early 20th century,
and below, 21st century Label Drummers of TAR.
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Struttin' With Some Barbeque (Lil Hardin)
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
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