On the strength of a book review, I recently bought a copy of David Hinton’s translations of the poetry of Du Fu, a late Tang Dynasty gentleman. “Gentleman” is, really, the best way to describe him – the poet, I mean; like most semi-wealthy Chinese men of the 8th century AD (wow, that’s an inappropriate calendar to use), he was an administrator with the late Tang dynasty imperial court, and as part of that, was expected to have mastered the poetic arts and to have a refined skill and taste in music, painting, and gardening. Interestingly, Chinese poetry was originally meant to be sung, but music was viewed as a differential art; no pop music in that era, I guess. To me, Du Fu – at least in translation – is an exceptional poet, although Chinese poetry, I’ve come to realise, is both written differently than Western poetry, and serves a different purpose in its local society as well.
Continue reading “Bad poetry reading”Stasis
This week, I have been thinking about Dante Alighieri, who died seven hundred years ago in September 1321, after contracting malaria while travelling from Venice back to Ravenna, where he lived in exile. In 1300, he had been caught up in one of those violent Florentine factional conflicts that erupted periodically, a fate that was to befall Niccolò Machiavelli two hundred years later. In Dante’s case the White Guelph party, of which he was a member, were thrown out of power by the Black Guelph party, working in collusion with the King of France’s brother. Dante was travelling back from Rome, after an unsuccessful diplomatic mission to the Pope, when he heard the news of his banishment, and he never again set foot in the city of his birth. In Canto XVII of Paradiso, written fifteen years later, he makes this prophesy to his younger self: Thou shalt by sharp experience be aware / how salt the bread of strangers is, how hard / the up and down of someone else’s stair.
Continue reading “Stasis”First Preface to the ‘Subject of Existence’
I’m fascinated by the question: ‘Who gets to exist?’ Here, I don’t mean in the biological sense; for I’m well aware of the coupling of a particular appendage with/in a particular receptacle which must precede the conception of a human being. When I ask this question, I’m thinking more broadly about the experience of ‘existence’ for a recursive, culturally-embedded human being: you, me, all of us individually and collectively.
Continue reading “First Preface to the ‘Subject of Existence’”Hoops
I’m not a flag-waving American type; in fact I find nationalism to be an almost purely awful inspiration for anything. It’s tribal, it’s an expression of not even “us”, but of the desire to fear “them”. Inevitably it degrades into irrational hatred. It’s not good.
But it’s March in the United States, and the country – after a Covid break in 2020 – is watching college basketball, and I am enormously happy about it.
Continue reading “Hoops”Hangovers
A friend of mine once gave me a good rule of thumb for “getting over” bad relationships – you know, the ones you get dumped from, or worse, the ones you have to end because there’s no mutual way out. He said it takes exactly half the length of how long you were actually in love, and because I’m a heterosexual, he also said “with the woman in question”. But I think he was on to something more general, which has been on my mind recently. I think human tribes have a similar function. This isn’t to say that we’re all tribal; no, I think we’re slowly – preciously slowly, and probably too slowly – evolving to the point where rank tribalism isn’t part of our emotional and mental makeup. But for most of us, it’s still there.
Continue reading “Hangovers”