Princess Mononoke

last night I watched a manga film with celine and joao, 'princess mononoke' (Hayao Miyazaki); incredibly beautifully designed and imaginative anime, which draws on japanese shinto spirituality. This is the story of a young prince warrior who has been cursed on slaying a demon, and must journey in exile to the spirit forest, where the demon originated from as a boar god. the forest is at war with the village, an iron forge intent on stripping the forest of its resources. the prince hijikato (?) struggles with the demon, the poison of hatred, that is infected within him, whilst trying to bridge the ignorance of the people and find resolution. It is a wonderful tale of flexible morality, where gods are fallible to weakness as much as humans, where there is always room for breakthroughs in understanding and growth.

browsing the net, i came across some interesting anime/manga sites;

one an essay with good links, on anime and environmentalism - the clash of old and new world is something i've come across often in my readings of Japanese art and culture . . . nature and its transformations, its subtleties, is indeed deeply rooted in the Japanese soul, the traditions, the world view and is reflected in every aspect of its culture, through its architecture, theatre, dance, art, yet the modern world and technologies that rapidly encroach on ancient landscapes, both physical and metaphorical, introduce intense challenges to these roots - it is a familiar story, and i think brings up many important questions to grapple with, on issues of conservation, progress, on how the essential vein of life can be carried through and animate a rapidly evolving world. now that is a challenge we all have to face, like Alice in Wonderland, to keep our heads when all around us are losing their's . . .

The other has downloads of music videos that Carlos Coral (Machine of Mindwarp entertainments) has edited from various anime (including 'princess mononoke') to the music of system of a down, nine inch nails, Korn, among others. They are good, though I think he gets a bit overexcited with fade-outs and strobe imagery which i reckon are better n more effective in smaller doses, still he has an eye for rhythm, and it gives a taste of some of the films artworks that he borrows from.

if you know of any others then let me know (good sites, films, etc) . . .

Princess Mononoke, directed by Hayao Miyazaki

What did your original face look like before your father and mother were born?

"When you hear me speak of emptiness, don't become attached to it, especially don't become attached to any idea of it. Merely "sitting" still with your mind vacant, you fall into notional emptiness.

The boundless emptiness of the sky embraces the 'ten thousand things' of every shape and form - the sun, moon and stars; mountains and rivers; bushes and trees; bad people and good; good teachings and bad; heavens and hells. All these are included in emptiness.

The emptiness of your original nature is just like this. It too embraces everything. To this aspect the word 'great' applies. All and everything is included in your own original nature."

-Hui Neng, his original face empty of features; his ode empty of mirrors; from Zen: Direct pointing to Reality by Anne Bancroft, 1979, Thames and Hudson; London



Listening to: Yoko Kanno 'Spiral Reborn'

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work of mariko mori, 'beginning of the end, shibuya tokyo' 1995

Kami, MA and MU

photographs by Mariko Mori


MA divides the world

An edge represented the limit of one world, assuming the existence of another world beyond. Anything that crossed, filled, or projected into the chasm of MA (the space between two edges) was designated hashi…
Ascending a bridge to reach the gods on high, marking boundaries by stretching ropes, embarking on the ship of the dead for the paradise beyond the seas, the chopsticks that the morsel travels to bridge the MA between the plate and the mouth, all these are hashi – the bridging of MA


MA is maintained by absolute darkness

The ancient Japanese believed that spirits called kami permeated the entire cosmos. They were conscious of the movements of the sun, which divided time and space. The sun created day and night, and life on earth as well as the world of darkness yami. The spirits dwelt in the world of shadows, the kingdom of the dead; they appeared on earth at specific times, then disappeared again into darkness.

Clock

Sunrise and sunset measured time in daily life in Japan, once upon a …
The interval between sunrise and sunset was divided into six equal parts, differing in length according to the length of the day and night at the particular time of year

In the 16th century, western-designed clocks were brought to Japan, but ultimately they were modified, by the addition of supplementary mechanisms, to accommodate the Japanese system of sunrise-sunset time measurement. This circumstance testifies to the absence of any idea of “absolute time� in Japan. In western thought, time is absolute, flowing uninterruptedly from the past to the future. The Japanese never had such a concept.


Traditional Japanese music ensemble plays without a conductor and the music is modified by the interactions of the players. Each player possesses an intuitive rhythm which produces a certain spontaneity of composition. Thus, Japanese music does not follow “absolute time� – represented by the metronome. The subtle differentiated time-patterns offered by the individual players create omnipresent currents of music.


MA is a place where life is lived

MA – the space where people live – becomes attractive to us only when it bears traces of the life it shelters


MA is the way of sensing the moment of movement

Utsori = the exact moment when the kami spirit entered into and occupied a vacant space. And signifies the moment when the shadow of the spirit emerged from the void; the moment when nature is transformed, the passage from one state to another.

The fading of life, the wilting of flowers, the flickering movements of the soul, the shadows cast on water and earth … this view of nature is deeply impressed on the Japanese soul reflected inarchitectural space, controlling transmission of light and lines of vision to produce ambiguous, indefinite space.

MA is the expectant stillness of the moment attending this kind of change, the changing world of nature.

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MA is an alignment of signs

Ma is an empty place where phenomena appear, pass by, and disappear

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MA coordinates movement from one place to another

Space is divided by one’s movements and breath
Michiyuki = a process of going from one place to another, in which space is considered as a time-flow perceived through the character’s experience.

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MA is filled with signs of the ephemeral

Sabi is the state of the body after the spirit has departed + the beauty of fading colours, of objects patinated by the passage of time, of a stage of transfiguration that precedes destruction.
A sense of the dissolution of all things, all exists at a temporary stage in this approach to extinction. Visible objects fade gradually into shadows of themselves.
A birth-destruction cycle, repeating endlessly.
Aware of the inevitable conclusion, lacking all hope of escape from this fate, man has but one choice – to live from moment to moment. Sabi.


Kami descend into round stones


Sometimes what falls from heaven to earth becomes kami

Sometimes kami is what rises from earth to heaven


Plants, especially pines, are symbols of kami’s rebirth


Grasses especially reeds, represent a primordial life force in Japan.


Waters especially waves, move to and fro endlessly in patterns symbolic of eternity.



Utsushimi {utsu meaning void/projection; mi meaning body} = the physical which is projected into reality

The Japanese have great love for the seasons, for their flowers, birds, the moon and snow, and for the “sound� of the wind . . .

“The city of the future is the ruin of the city of the present� – Arata Isozaki

Flowers are symbols of both life and death, but evergreen leaves are potent symbols of the soul . . .


God in Japanese is kami

Kami has no physical body, its body and essence exist as a vacuum “a place entirely void of matter�. But void does not mean “nothing is there�, rather, “there is a hollow there� as “nothing (MU) exists there�.

Kami as the kehai (atmosphere of ch’i) which fills a void
Versus the Aristotellian principle of “Abhorrence of the vacuum�

Kami was thought to visit, to dwell temporarily in the mountains and the sea. The line of the mountains and hills against the sky, the horizon over the water, these were the kami’s proscenium arches where they entered and exist.

Not nature gods, but an abstract time-space god…
In the longer cycle, the time-space god would descend on the first day of the new year, in the shorter, every morning…

Kami does not abide: its nature is to arrive and then to depart.



The Japanese aesthetic of stillness and motion is what we call MA; the magnetic field from which the ch’I of kami subtly emanates . . .


- Notes from 'Ma Space-Time in Japan': Cooper-Hewitt Museum, Exhibition Catalogue, New York, 1979


listening to: computer humming, tap of fingers, crackle of engines

mariko mori 'burning desire' 1996-98

Just another day at the library

Today I sit and the cherry blossom falls around me. So delicate so beautiful soft tender kisses whispering with the wind. All is pink and burnt gold shining, petals fall into my pizza and I am more content to look at it soft pink, and green glisten of gelapino pepper, light reflecting light from the oil of pepperoni and the paused metal of a knife and fork. I prefer it as art to food right now. Around me chatter blurs the edges of the traffic and the sound of singing and a flute filters through this afternoon sun.

I sit here working. Pen in one hand, cigarette in another and coffee before me cupped in corrugated cardboard. This is beautiful too. I am still, inside. I work on my essay, another, on Japanese art and culture, and I read.. A book of Junichiro Tanizaki 'in praise of shadows',

he writes "whenever I sit with a bowl of soup before me, listening to the murmur that penetrates
like the far off shrill of an insect, lost in contemplation of flavours to come, i feel as if I were being drawn into a trance. The experience must be something like that of the tea master who, at the sound of the kettle, is taken from himself as if upon the sigh of the wind in the legendary pines of Onoe."

The petals fall across the pages and mark the words. I close the book and think, about the taste of my latte, about the sharp breeze on the back of my neck, I hold the heat of the coffee in my mouth, then swallow. It slips down my throat with a touch of cinammon.




Last night I saw a friend's playNex she directed, written by one of my favourite tutors, John London. The play was great, I laughed out loud all the way through. Sam was in it and was brilliant, comic timing to perfection. By all accounts it was a hit. One of Peter Hall's old stooges from the 50's came and loved it as did an avantgarde filmmaker who directed a film on Vita Futurista though I can't remember his name. (Lutz Becker). So we all went to the pub to toast first night success. And then there was Paul.

Paul is a face that most everytbody knows but who few people know, if that makes sense. A fixture of the Rotherhithe library, eternally weaving in and out of rich dusty pages and devouring knowledge that shoots out of his mouth with every passing like pellets at clay pigeons. He quite simply blows your mind. A short roundish jewish south-african guy, around late 40's with small wire rimmed glasses framing sharp and curious eyes, his mind races to catch up with itself tumbling out of his mouth in a freeform dance that spins a trail of dizzziness behind it. He is eccentric, and truly fascinating. He has a lot to say, and to be sure if you can pace yourself to match his train of thought it is all astute and on the money. Though more often than not he'll leave you far behind, to recollect your rattled brain from which the cobwebs have been sandblasted.

I watched his whirlwhind work its magic on everyone, already heady with the evening and wine and beer. Conversations fell quiet as he spoke, and laughter at the images he conjured in the air. . . but also I noticed how they laughed sometimes from behind walls, for a moment he playing jester to their sovereignty . . . i don't mean to sound, i don't know, judgemental, or I do , I am, though I stand outside that judgement, and think about how standardised our society becomes, how easily otherness becomes a comfortable divider. They were not unkind, just indulgent and pleasantly diverted. even J-Lo, viewing him as an intriguing diversion from - o , but I know I'm fascinated by characters too. But I think it is important to leave a space for equality and how surprised and humbled we can be, to know that a man's or woman's wiring can just mean that thoughts travel along different routes, as they all do. Except often they don't. Have you ever listened and noticed the predictability of some conversation? Too often people wander through life not truly connected, mindlessly regurgitating words, sentences that have turned over and over, stock script, stock scenario, stock response . . . Well something really touched me, and I felt tears, a sweep of melancholy, ripple through me as we talked . . . it surprised me, I felt foolish a little and just watched this emotion pass through me, I don't think he noticed though i knew my eyes must be brighter with my emotion, it was some thing he said. but i'm too tired, none of what i write makes sense right now, the images, and experience i'm finding hard to transcribe, I'm no longer sure what /i'm trying to say... maybe it is no longer interesting, just another evening in a pub . . .

listening to: Kitaro 'Silk Road ii'

Back, working, :o)

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Each passing year
,,,,,,,,,,,,,never failing to exact its toil
,,keeps altering what was sublime into the stuff
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,of comedy

,,,,,,,If the exterior is eaten away is it true then
that the sublime pertains by nature only to an exterior
,,,,,,,,,,which conceals a core of nonsense

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,is something eaten away

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,or

,,,,,does the sublime indeed pertain to the whole
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,but a ludicrous dust settles upon it
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,?

- Yukio Mishima


A woman, a black willow weeping, hauls a blower through an autumn forest, tracing her path with clearings swept through the leaves, she struggles with the weight of order, beautiful and fragile and strong

A woman, dressed in a bunny suit that slips down to reveal small impatient breasts, staggers and stumbles through a barren landscape of rock and mud, looking for something she doesn't know

two old men in old brown wool trenchcoats and tobacco tweed trilbys shuffle across the mud to their hitchcock rhythm, seeing not the breasts but only their memories

A woman in blue hotpants runs blindly through the forest screaming out for mama

The wind blows the fading silhouettes of two oriental waifs they smile bow legged in underwear and run down a lost highway

There are numbers on the trees counting off each breath

and 28 men walk through the forest with crying babies

A woman sits smoking a cigarette in an armchair in the middle of peak traffic

and a man shaves in a puddle at the side of the road. The splash of passing tyres rinses the soap away but he sees only the blade and his reflection.

A man carries a wardrobe on his back across an empty field
a woman ties a belt tight around her waist and counts her breath
whilst yet another dances rhythm with her hands behind a fall of water in a glass house

and a man's naked body dances salsa covered in mud in a greenhouse filled with bright coloured flowers



Listening to: Ravi Shankar

placebos

I am still, watching the avalanche about to hit
doing nothing, just staring at it and inside i'm shouting come on you stupid fool, move, WHY DON'T YOU MOVE, but I don't. I just stay there, inert, comfortably numb. It is like in a moment I can see my life pass by me at high speed and stand outside it watching it leave me behind. I know that I stand at a point of regret, and maybe writing this, seeing that stark reality, in a world of clocks and irretrievable moments, maybe just maybe it will start my wheels turning, stop me making the same mistake once twice three times too late. It is like I am split in two, a tiny stronger me is running around in my belly stamping her feet and spitting fire, pounding at the walls of my cage and aching to shatter the links of the chain, straining to make me listen, I can feel her in there, she scrapes at my stomach and her yells reach my muffled ears like that blurred faceless murmur that filters through as you cross the soundless bridge into sleep. . .
But I watch her too,
I, as I float off into timeless star-pricked skies. Distance grows. But still I know that I will have to go back, ... I know too as much as she that down there the clocks never stop ticking . . .

A Discussion of the Choreographic Principles of Bausch and Forsythe and a Comparison between them. Give specific examples of their work.

FORSYTHE:

"When he works collaboratively, Forsythe challenges the traditional distinction between choreographer and dancer, thus questioning hierarchy, authorship, and disciplinary boundaries." Steven Spier

"I like classical dance. I think it's a nice neutral language. You look at a ballet and you read history. What we try to do is to keep the syntax logical without resorting to rhetorical ballet language. Choreography is a language. It's like the alphabet and you don't necessarily have to spell words you know: The value of a language is determined by the context in which it appears. The most important thing is how you speak with the language, not what you say." Forsythe

"Choreography is about organising bodies in space, or you're organising bodies with other bodies, or a body with other bodies in an environment that is organised."

"the gist of the whole piece [France/Dance] is the organisation of the human body as an art form."

"Disregarding the verticality and apparent effortlessness that inform ballet, Forsythe allows many different planes of orientation to co-exist, introducing a disequilibrium that gives the movement a quality of release and fluidity altogether different from the control and prowess emphasised by classical technique."

"certain areas of dance demand trance. You can't reach them without trance. Trance conditions contain particular aesthetic qualities for the active, involved person. That, I think, is a privilege: to participate in this state. They are in a state of ecstasy, and that has nothing to do with good or bad. It's a reaction, both psychological and biological - it's both, and it protects you. When human beings attain this state they can do very dangerous things without injuring themselves."

Why one dances, and how one organises the body in space.

PINA BAUSCH:

"Criticism of the training rituals of classical ballet, often a noticeable part of Bausch's choreography, can be traced to its roots in the critiques of dividing the body into discrete sections. In the mechanisms of bellet training the alienation of the body from its own impulses has become just as manifest as the isolation of the limbs from one another.


"What remains is a concept of physicality that's as far removed from logical-rational physical terms as from the ahistorical cult of naturalness as it appeared possible on Monte Verita. Pina Bausch's aesthetic is neither Dionysic in Nietzsche's sense nor ritualistic in Artaud's

"The collective body as an aesthetic mythos is Bauschian choreography's frame of reference in many respects."
Bausch:
As dance theatre Pina Bausch's is also a synaesthesia, one that allows us to see, hear and smell in equal degrees.


NOTES:

Bausch psychological as it is a narrative, what moves the body rather than what the body moves.

"Fear, one of the chief problems* of our age, is also a major topos in Bausch's work. Her own fear and the fear of her characters, a fear which paralyses, which provokes aggression, a fear of revealing oneself or of finding oneself without protection at the hands of a partner whose reactions one cannot trust because he might strike out "out of fear. "

Bausch may reject the label or box of meaning, so long as there is meaning found within the mind of the spectator. In sense to heal. Therefore her choreography is a process of delving into memory and emotion - her aim is to create a holistic organic work through exploration of fragmentation

Forsythe on the other hand delves into the technique, into how the body moves, what it moves and what moves it in the sense of physical influences, gravity, physiognomy, physiology, rhythm. . . Spiritual, in the sense of meaning found in the innocence from meaning of its conception.

Forsythe works with ballet, with breakdance, and improvisation

Bausch with memory, with emotion, and play

Forsythe celebrates challenges to body in his working process, Bausch laments it and fights it


*Italics my own. . . This is a meaning the interviewer sees. . . is one of many parts . . . fragmented . . . holistic . . . and love . . . and hunger


listening to: Igor Stravinsky 'Alleluja, laudate dominum'

So just what tough are you?

. . .

,,,,,Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing direction. You change direction, but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverised bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.
,,,,,And that's exactly what I do. I imagine a white funnel stretching vertically up like a thick rope. My eyes are closed tight, hands cupped over my ears, so those fine grains of sand can't blow inside me. The sandstorm draws steadily closer. I can feel the air pressing on my skin. It really is going to swallow me up.
,,,,,The boy called Crow rests a hand softly on my shoulder, and with that the storm vanishes.
,,,,,"From now on - no matter what - you've got to be the world's toughest 15-year-old. That's the only way you're going to survive. And in order to do that, you've got to figure what it means to be tough. You following me?"
,,,,, I keep my eyes closed and don't reply. I just want to sink off into sleep like this, his hand on my shoulder. I hear the faint flutter of wings.
,,,,,"You're going to the world's toughest 15-year-old," Crow whispers as I try to fall asleep. As if he were carving the words in a deep blue tattoo on my heart.

And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.
,,,,,And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.
,,,,,On my fifteenth birthday I'll run away from home, journey to a far-off town and live in a corner of a small library. It'd take a week to go into the whole thing, all the details. So I'll just give the main point. On my fifteenth birthday I'll run away from home, journey to a far-off town, and live in a corner of a small library . . .


Haruki Murakami - 'Kafka on the Shore'

Listening to: Tracy Chapman

petrushka's cupboard

Actually this is perfect right now, everything numbed with tiredness i feel vacant. i only hope my brain engages sometime soon and i can focus on the things i should. maybe i do leave too many spaces that even i lose myself inside them . . . falling into the gaps of tangents and emptiness and possibility.

i am following the tide and it is carrying me to deeper waters than i can tread. so maybe i will relinquish logic - i don't know where i might end up, where any of this is taking me. To sleep maybe? I hope so... perhaps i'll shed the weight of rationality and swim

listening to: nothing
India Arie - 'Brown Skin'
William Burroughs - 'Seven Souls (Secret Name)'

mood = feeling the pressure!!!!!!
oooOOOOOAARRRRGGGHHHHHH!!!

BRING IT ON!



Listening to: Tomahawk - 'Mit Gas'

Laszlo Hortobagyi

Some amazing music recommended by Bedouin . . . really take time to explore ... free downloads, thoughts and interviews, in fact there is LOADS to see and hear ... great artwork too! A crazy world . . ;)

Also Muslimgauze

what we can not. . .

We know already what we cannot do.
So, what does that leave us-?
What approaches or approximations,
What signs and signals can we pass between us?
Not doing-but coming close to?

You may tell me something using only gestures-
Letting my mind fill the blanks in.
Or, you may suggest with an eyebrow or smile
The content of the space at your finger's end.
You can un-speak the syllables that your open mouth assures.

Certainly, I may smile, glance, or lean-
I may suggest or allude to
Suggestions. I may say your name.
But, can I think of what we could do-
Vaguely willing you to guess what I mean?

Perhaps a certain manner of touch is allowed-
Touch of Knees? Brush of Fingertips?
Surely, not hands! Maybe Shoulder- or Elbow?
Maybe Calves, Arms, or Hips.
Maybe parts you wouldn't (couldn't) say out loud.

Or, maybe, we can do what we like-
but, what would that be?
You or I have never had to choose.
It could be that this is what you want, and-
If that is true then this too, is best for me.

Not a word. Not a touch. No hand.
Not a brush, or a thought.
No blind, wild rush-
But, the truth is, I don't care what we can not-
I care only about what possibly we can.

- N


Not a word, not a breath, not a brush, nor a thought... walls every way i turn, doors shut, and i try to think that it is for the best, but questions crowd in on the silence and sounds rise up like phantom waves that i alone hear in a storm of nothing, old pains carressed with salt. Is he sad, is he happy, has he chosen to forget and walk on into future minutes with my iamge shut in pages of yesterdays book, to gather dust on a forgotten shelf?

Goodbye might make it easier, that I'd know that if it has ended the chapter closed, instead I wander whether I really saw him, a glimpse in a crowded platform that for a moment seeped away to leave just us standing at a station outside time... or a word to say, time's needed, a digestion, a... a... pause...

Did i do something wrong?

have i misunderstood?

was it something i said?

..............................................................is this it?

traces . . . 90% of the world is dark matter . . .

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.you see i write as i feel, but sometimes things shoot out of the blue a something hidden that i can not speak of nor barely think of without splitting apart and floating off... i never knew that things could hurt so much and mean so little . . . there are a million and three things that i would like to say but the spaces grow too large and the glass too full . . . i turn to the east and think i remember my souls last pilgrimage, it roosted and left me behind, am i so nothing that even the air passes me by, or so vast that this world alone is not quiet or large enough to contain me. . . i love you . . . i remember that but i. can. not. connect. to . the. photograph. when i really think i re member no thing and i ask myself which dream is real . . . ? .
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,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Where
,,,,,,,,does ,,,,,,,,,,begin?
,,one ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,another
,,,,,,,thought,,,,,,,and
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,end

begin?

end?

begin?




Memory

and

me
a
nin
g

) . . .



listening to: Amon Tobin 'Reanimator'

What is home?

a geographical space?
i don't think so,
more maybe the sense that fills the space
with belonging
with freedom
with courage.
A family thing?
In part,
in all,
but mother
and father
and sister and brother
child
friend
lover
fold outwards and inwards
to the power of ten
each snapshot a metaphor
of
something
more
or
less
. . .
home is where i lay my hat?
Whilst I still have my head firmly
on my sholders
eye open
as it follows the heart
(don't leave it on the bed
but am i forgiven
if
i
do
?
)
Home is the landscape
i fly through
that i see
from my
armchair
when i
close
my
eyes.
Or
the spot i choose
to land.
Perhaps?
The tides of the river know
did they learn from the sea
and the
emerald
pebble
that
glistened
on
the
shingles?
the first ,
darkness,
and the
sounds
of
the
ocean
. . .
?