bhikku

bhikku http://www.bhikku.net/ en Copyright 2007 Tue, 03 Jul 2007 14:44:57 +0000 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://www.bhikku.net/ http://www.bhikku.net/favicon.ico bhikku Swimming . . . is not genteel; and the world - at least the genteel part of it - acts very wisely in setting its face against it; for to swim you must be naked, and how would many a genteel person look without his clothes? - George Borrow]]> http://www.bhikku.net/2007/07/03.html http://www.bhikku.net/2007/07/03.html quotidian Tue, 03 Jul 2007 14:44:57 +0000

John Piper Sunflowers at Marignac, 1956

]]> http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/23.html http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/23.html quotidian Sat, 23 Jun 2007 06:37:12 +0000 Still, Alphaville, Godard "This dump of yours isn’t Alphaville, it’s Zeroville" shouts the tetchy protagonist. And such is the gravitational pull of this film on first viewing that the rest of cinema seems like Zeroville indeed. It's like a neutron star or an imploded katamari, packed full of references, portmanteaus of plot and history and semiotics. At any moment what's on screen is setting off bombs in your head, large and small (Oh, Eddie Constantine chain-smoking has Kurt Vonnegut's eyes). There are delicious cameos by Jean-Pierre Léaud - on-screen for all of two and a half seconds - and Akim Tamiroff, whose sad expressive face lasts a little longer before his character's rubbed out by a computer-controlled Class Three Seductress. There are strong echoes of Tati's Mon Oncle, made seven years before in 1958. Superficially Lemmy Caution is Tati's character, with permanent hat and raincoat, juggling cigarettes and a gun instead of a pipe. Both stand bemused in the vast foyers of modernist space-age Paris, the director lovingly poking fun at the architecture. Both come from the Lands Without; and as in Alphaville's universe, the inhabitants of Mon Oncle's New Paris are constrained in emotion and thought, unaware of the largesse of the real world outside. Also Rivette's Celine and Julie Go Boating, where the villa's inhabitants are unable to see or hear outsiders, and indulge in slow-motion arm flailing ("Aidez-moi . . . au secours . . .") reminiscent of the strange movements of Alphaville's population once Alpha 60 has melted down. Sad though that Godard seems to have associated technology with science: Alphaville's streets are named after the great physicists of paradox: Fermi, Heisenberg, don't they deserve better?]]> http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/22.html http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/22.html quotidian Fri, 22 Jun 2007 13:42:38 +0000 To such a pass our civilization and division of labor has come, that A, a professional huckleberry-picker, has hired B's field; C, a professed cook, is superintending the cooking of a pudding made of the berries; while Professor D, for whom the pudding is intended, sits in his library writing a book. That book, which should be the ultimate fruit of the huckleberry field, will be worthless. There will be none of the spirit of the huckleberry in it. The reading of it will be a weariness to the flesh. I believe in a different division of labor, and that Professor D should divide himself between the library and the huckleberry field." - Thoreau]]> http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/13.html http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/13.html quotidian Wed, 13 Jun 2007 13:53:24 +0000 I cannot help counting it a fault in him that he had no ambition. Wanting this, instead of engineering for all America, he was the captain of a huckle-berry party. - Emerson on Thoreau]]> http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/12.html http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/12.html side-quote Tue, 12 Jun 2007 08:27:59 +0000 Dr. Jenkinson's Cholera Powders, "the only known specific for this Fatal Complaint." Next came a discreet bottle for Female Ailments, not otherwise described, and a large assortment of cheap medicines: Doctor Hoborow's Mixture for the Blood. Old Doctor Gubbins's Liver Remedy, with a picture of old Doctor Gubbins being told by an Eminent Scientist that the Remedy was essential to Health.
Rhubarb Pills, for use in the Spring.
Dr. Mainspring's Mariner's Joy, for the most obstinate cases.
Bile Pills.
Liver Pills.
Dr. Primrose's Kidney Pellets, as prescribed by the famous Dr. Primrose to the unfortunate Queen of the French.
Dr. Gubbins's Spring Mixture, for the Blood.
Dr. Gubbins's Autumn Mixture, for the Blood.
"These Sovereign specifics correct Nature in those difficult seasons when the Body politic is adjusting itself to changed conditions."
Nature's Remedy, "Vegetable Pills prepared from plants known to the Red Indians, who by their daily use attain to the ages of 100: even 120 being not uncommon."
Senna Tea, "two tablets dissolved in the cup that cheers ensures a happy household."
"The Salt of Life, being the active principle of Epsom and Glauber Salts extracted by a new process."
In addition to these, there were wrappers and empty boxes which marked where others had lain.
"Dr. Gubbins's Nutrient Corrective, being a Medical Food derived from Active Vegetable Principles by the World Famous Lemuel Gubbins." There was a picture of Dr. Gubbins, who seemed to be a mixture of Euripides and the Duke of Wellington. from John Masefield, The Bird of Dawning]]> http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/11.html http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/11.html quotidian Mon, 11 Jun 2007 16:43:58 +0000 mince . . . il était maigre . . ", before subsiding again into helplessness.]]> http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/08.html http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/08.html quotidian Fri, 08 Jun 2007 13:35:25 +0000 35th Prelude from Time in the Rock [2:34].]]> http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/07.html http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/07.html quotidian Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:44:27 +0000 Still, Woman in the Dunes, Hiroshi Teshigahara.]]> http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/01.html http://www.bhikku.net/2007/06/01.html quotidian Fri, 01 Jun 2007 04:30:01 +0000 sproing!), at a distance. Leading inexorably to the question, where was it in between? Was it in between? Yes, in spades, your man decides. But the question would never have arisen if he'd looked at a runner, because a running man is obviously always somewhere. Greece, it usually was in those days.]]> http://www.bhikku.net/2007/05/24.html http://www.bhikku.net/2007/05/24.html quotidian Thu, 24 May 2007 07:29:07 +0000 A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford [3:25]]]> http://www.bhikku.net/2007/05/10.html http://www.bhikku.net/2007/05/10.html quotidian Thu, 10 May 2007 15:27:37 +0000

]]> http://www.bhikku.net/2007/05/09.html http://www.bhikku.net/2007/05/09.html quotidian Wed, 09 May 2007 16:42:20 +0000 For the curious there are two Icelandic foods that should certainly be tried. One is Hákarl, which is half-dry, half-rotten shark. This is white inside with a prickly horn rind outside, as tough as an old boot. Owing to the smell it has to be eaten out of doors. It is shaved off with a knife and eaten with brandy. It tastes more like boot polish than anything else I can think of. The other is Reyngi. This is the tail of the whale, which is pickled in sour milk for a year or so. If you intend to try it do not visit a whaling station first. Incidentally, talking about pickling in sour milk, the Icelanders also do this with sheeps' udders and the result is surprisingly very nice. - Auden & MacNeice, Letters from Iceland]]> http://www.bhikku.net/2007/05/08.html http://www.bhikku.net/2007/05/08.html quotidian Tue, 08 May 2007 08:21:01 +0000 geographical tube map makes one appreciate once more the genius of Harry Beck.]]> http://www.bhikku.net/2007/05/07.html http://www.bhikku.net/2007/05/07.html quotidian Mon, 07 May 2007 14:56:41 +0000 Stanley Spencer, Travoys Arriving with Wounded at a Dressing-Station at Smol, Macedonia, September 1916 Spencer wrote: 'This picture is not in any material or practical sense a truthful representation of the scene it is supposed to depict.' All of the commentaries talk about about the spiritual aspects of the picture; Spencer himself was keen to emphasise 'God in the bare real things, in a limber wagon, in ravines, in fouling mule lines'. But what no-one mentions is what seems clearest to me, that one of the strongest echoes here is of a Nativity/Epiphany scene: the mules looking into the circle of light at a helpless recumbent figure.

Columba aspexit per cancellos fenestrae . . .

]]> http://www.bhikku.net/2007/05/06.html http://www.bhikku.net/2007/05/06.html quotidian Sun, 06 May 2007 21:30:59 +0000