i-eclectica.org

The ancient Japanese poetry form of haiku was originally the opening verse of a longer poem, the renga. Refined by the poet Basho, it has since evolved into an independent art form. At times delicate and willowy, at times punchy and ironic, these bite-sized poems deliver maximum effect with minimum description. Kigo (season words) often set the tone:

Icy cold, brown slush
seeps stealthily through leather
finds hole in my sock

Today, the winter solstice, is National Haiku Poetry Day.

Quote: “The haiku lets meaning float; the aphorism pins it down.”

— Mason Cooley

[via Spotlight @ Answers.com]

The Japanese characters and written or spoken words are are called ‘kanji’. The word kanji is from kan (the name given to a great part of China thousands of years ago, from where the language and characters were adopted by Japan) and ji, meaning language or words.

The image to the left is an example for haiku. Kanji is written from right to left and from top to bottom. The three columns on the left are the cherry blossom haiku verse; the next column of two characters represents Maitreya’s original Japanese name, Koji, which interestingly means ’supervisor of cultivation’; and the final column far left is the date, which traditionally includes the emperor’s name, hence so many characters.

I’ve just come back from Adelaide (the latter explaining the lack of postings for the last few days), and I had decided to do something this morning I already wanted to do before my trip: check out Wuala - which I will in a tic . Going to YouTube though, I found this little clip - on a movie called “Hard Walk”, to be released in the States on December 21. I’m sure it’ll come to Australia, like most questionable Hollywood production warez. “Walk Hard” is a parody of the biopic genre, and mainly caricaturises the 2005 film, “Walk the Line” (which documented the life of Johnny Cash), following the fictional character Dewey Cox as he eventually gets caught up in the fame of rock and roll. The film contains a lot of references to other biopics, such as those of Jimi Hendrix and Marilyn Monroe; even the movie’s poster is a reference to the “young lion” photos of Jim Morrison. Despite my suspicion that the movie will be crap, I nevertheless quite like this song and its undertones …

My good mate Harry found this video on Random Good Stuff. I like the idea of proving that anybody can dance, and I also like that it can be see as continuing a tradition that is probably almost totally forgotten (except by my vaguely). During the early days of the Russian revolution artists, especially those previously linked to Futurism, tried out all kinds of amazing things to push artistic boundaries. Given the fascination those guys had for industrialisation, one then famous composer wrote a symphony for sirens and other factory elements (can’t remember, maybe chimneys and/or cranes) and he conducted it from some lofty point above a factory. I wonder whether he would have shared some artistic passions with the choreographer of the excavator ballet …

This is an example for what I absolutely love about today’s music. Click on the image to go to Montreal’s A-Track MySpace site and listen to his 2007 remix of Kayne Wests’ 2007 “Stronger” - which itself was a remix of Daft Punk’s 2001 famous “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” - which in turn was a remix of the 1970s’ “Cola Bottle Baby” by Edwin Birdsong (mp3 clip). What a musical lineage! Such re-creations of course have happened in the past with artists reinterpreting previous artist’s compositions, but with today’s sampling and mixing methods the originals are actually preserved in consequent versions; in this case, Birdsong’s original recording can still be heard in this fourth incarnation, albeit just as tiny little specs. This is postmodernism in action - a constant flow of deconstruction and construction. Fabulous!

Another example for how street art spirit becomes corrupted through commercialisation: a Rambo movie poster - yuk. And most distasteful: Rambo looking like Che! What are the associations here: guerrilla art, guerrilla warfare, Rambo what? Eliminating guerrillas through warfare. Rather absurd!