CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (69)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西）

CAPACITY/INTENSITY 容量/烈度

Posted April 1, 2021

_____________________________________

_____________________________________

_____________________________________

_____________________________________

_____________________________________

_____________________________________

SAYING

Mokurai

2021

Saying is not breathing,

saying says something.

— Chuang Tzu

Are you here …

are you there … ?

Can you hear

… as it were … (?)

________________________________________

” … ‘Exactly Alike’ …”. M. Cynog-Evans – Digital Original.

●
Structures everywhere, the anti-dream to destruction.
— Elias Canetti (1967)
________________________________________

________________________________________

Image:
Chinese boats at the boomerang-shaped Whitsun Reef – Western Philippines. [Maxor Technologies via AFP]
●
Aljazeera Media Network (Qatar), 28 March 2021
The Philippines air force has been conducting daily aerial patrols near a disputed reef, Delfin Lorenzana (the country’s defense chief) said, as he repeated a call to Beijing for their withdrawal from the area.
…
The Philippines ordered China to recall the vessels, describing their presence as an incursion into its sovereign territory. But China, which claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, said the flotilla is made up of fishing vessels sheltering from bad weather.
________________________________________

________________________________________

If you make inquiries by manipulating different information, then even unknown details will become apparent.

— Han Fei (d. 233 BCE)

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (68)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西）

CAPACITY/INTENSITY 容量/烈度

Posted March 27, 2021

___________________________________

___________________________________

___________________________________

___________________________________

Send Me a Leaf

Bertolt Brecht

(1955)

Send me a leaf, but from a bush

That grows at least half an hour

Away from your house, then

You must go and will be strong, and I

Thank you for the pretty leaf.

________________________________________

___________________________________

___________________________________

” … ‘Henceforward’ … Nitobe Memorial Garden …”. Photo: M. Cynog-Evans.

●
The waking consciousness seeks to understand not only itself, but in addition something that is akin to itself.

— Oswald Spengler (1922)
________________________________________

” … Cherry Blossoms & Signage – Nakameguro (Tokyo) … 25 March 2021 …”. Photo: Kasami Kong.

________________________________________

________________________________________

Onseself (Again)

Mokurai

20.03.21.

The leap into the universal is so

dangerous that one has to keep

practicing it, and always on

the same spot.

— Elias Canetti

Could or else (how) should

a commencement come

to disclose itself …

Or (otherwise) be

able and willing

not to just advance

Into the field of

no longer present

blank precautions (now)

… when … there … as before

an appearance stops

being itself (then)?

________________________________________

___________________________________

North Korea

The Guardian, 26 March 2020

●

North Korea has claimed that it has tested a new guided missile.
…
Photos on the website of the North’s main Rodong Sinum newspaper showed a missile lifting off from a transport erector launcher amid bright flames.
…
Vipin Narang of MIT said it appeared to be a weapon that the North displayed at a military parade in January. “A 2.5 ton warhead likely settles the question whether this KN23 variant is nuclear capable. It is,” he tweeted.

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

MEMO to CAUSA

26 March 2021

●
Mt. Fuji cherry [planted in Spring 2020] … in bloom in two weeks or so.

— Ryo Sugiyama, Curator, Nitobe Memorial Garden, University of British Columbia

___________________________________________

CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (67)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西）

Decentred Frames 去中心框架

Posted March 19, 2021

____________________________________

____________________________________

____________________________________

____________________________________

____________________________________

____________________________________

Sylvia Hui (London), Japan Today, March 17, 2021
●

The UK government will lift its own cap on the size of its nuclear stockpile.

Setting out a vision of a “Global Britain,” the government’s new strategy [announced by Boris Johnson, this week] plans to overhaul the UK’s defense priorities, most notably paving the way for increasing the amount of nuclear warheads Britain has at its disposal to 260. That reverses the existing plans to reduce the stockpile to 180 by the middle of the decade, and a longstanding policy of nuclear disarmament.
…
Tuesday’s announcement comes after Johnson’s announcement in November of a 16.5 billion ($23 billion) increase in defense spending … focusing on the future battlefields of space and cyber rather than traditional resources such as army troops.

________________________________________

” Inner Hu(man) … “. Photo: M. Cynog-Evans.
●
The universe is the mirror in which we can contemplate only what we have learned to know ourselves.

— Italo Calvino
________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

Kajita Hanko, Man on Waterwheel – sumi on paper, Japan, ca. 1895.
●
The effects come before the causes in all situations. The ground comes before the figure in all situations.

— Marshall McLuhan (1973)
________________________________________

________________________________________

NOT NOW

Mokurai

2017

Roll on, you witless, dark brown
ocean, roll on …

— Malcolm Lowry

The left behind are leaving

(how can that bode well?)

and only they know not where

or when that moment of absence

begins to become again complete.

How to expand upon a posture

of imposition (making sense only

of some final front line of behind)

that outreaches every incoming source

of on or off or otherwise footloose

without being either here/there or just there?

________________________________________

________________________________________

Justin McCurry (Tokyo), The Guardian, March 17, 2021
●
North Korea could be planning to flight test an upgraded inter-continental ballistic missile [ICBM]. … The warning, by Air Force General Glen VanHerck [head of the Northern Command … in charge of defending the continental US] … came as US secretary of state Antony Blinken and degence secretary Lloyd Austin began a visit to Japan and South Korea to discuss security.
…
North Korea has not tested a nuclear weapon or ICBM in more than three years, but has confirmed continued production of nuclear weapons.
Earlier this week, the White House confirmed reports that the Biden administration had tried to reach North Korea but had not received a response.

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

Aljazeera, 9 March 2021
Planetary Pact: China and Russia Move to Launch Lunar Space Station
●Russia and China have unveiled plans for a lunar space station as Moscow seeks to recapture the glory of its pioneering days of Soviet times, and Beijing gears up its own extraterrestrial ambitions.
Though Russia was once at the forefront of space travel – it sent the first man into space – its cosmic ambitions have dimmed thanks to poor financing and endemic corruption.
This year, it celebrates the anniversary of Russia’s first-ever crewed space flight — it sent Yuri Gagarin into space in 1961, followed by the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova, two years later.

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

NASA (Apollo 12) astronaut Alan Bean – the fourth human to walk on the moon (1969).
●
We have no standard anymore for anything, ever since human life is no longer the standard.
— Elias Canetti (1942)
________________________________________

________________________________________

CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (66)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西）

Decentred Frames 去中心框架

Posted March 12, 2021

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

__________________________________

Kajito Hanko, ReadingBoy, (Meiji Era Japan) – sumi on paper, ca. 1895.
________________________________________

________________________________________

” … ‘Beyond Culture’ …”. Photo: M. Cynog-Evans.
●
We all recognize that a foundation of human character is to learn to build into our personality a shrewd selection from the glory and agony of passing events, so that experience of the most transient can contribute to something of us which is not so transient, and may even reconstruct our mental structure through active memory and imagination. The “passing” is not necessarily “lost.” Perhaps this is one sense in which we train ourselves to conquer the ancient enmity of time.
– Martin Johnson, Time, Knowledge, and the Nebulae (1945)

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

Many peoples … shall beat their swords into plough shares, and their spears into pruning hooks.
— Book of Isaiah (compiled during the latter half of the 8th century to the latter half of the 6th century BCE)

________________________________________

________________________________________

Invisibly Clear

Mokurai

(2020)

Absurdity challenges

every ethics.

– Simone de Beauvoir

We (always) have seen (awful) scenes

before they became a becoming

similar to a reason for (still) existing.

Repeat (revolve … contrarily):

All scenes seen can seem (again)

infinitely similar to every other ruined

future seeking (full) finite fulfillment.

________________________________________

________________________________________

That the mental fire doesn’t burn appears to be the first prerequisite of our managing the fire that does burn – of having it burn when, how, and where we wish. … This is just the fundamental question of morals – the interaction of persons and things, or of personal freedom and the stable order.

– John Dewey (1904)

________________________________________

________________________________________

Liu Xuanzun, Global Times (Beijing), March 7, 2021

The Chinese Liberation Army (PLA) recently commissioned its second 10,000-ton class Type 055 large destroyer after the first of its class entered service in early 2020, state broadcaster China Central Television revealed on Sunday (7 March).
The commissioning of the type 055 guided missile destroyers, considered some of the most powerful warships in the world, marks the strategic development of the PLA Navy, and will enable the service to better safeguard China’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and development Interests, analysts said.
The type 055 guided missile destroyer has a whopping 112 vertical launch missile cells capable of launching a combination of surface-to-air missiles, land-attack missiles and anti-submarine missiles … and the warship is also endowed with the capability to gain strong situational awareness.
The type 055 destroyer can also counter stealth aircraft and low-Earth orbit satellites.

________________________________________

________________________________________

Zhong Kui the Demon Queller with Five Bats – anonymous artist, China, 16-17th century. Ink and colour on silk; hanging scroll. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.
Curatorial Record:
Zhong Kui has been a subject in Chinese figure painting from as early as the Tang dynasty (618 – 907 CE).
The five bats refer to the five blessings: longevity, wealth, health, virtue and a graceful death.
________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (65)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西）

Decentred Frames 去中心框架

Posted March 5, 2021

___________________________________

___________________________________

___________________________________

___________________________________

bill bissett
2021
●

___________________________________

___________________________________

Fairly Permanent

Mokurai

2021

Awareness of universals is called

conceiving, and a universal of which

we are aware is called a concept.

— Bertrand Russell

there is more than a delay

in a silence repeated

and if a repetition

might be (also) incomplete

or incomprehensible

before becoming a part

of a prolgue prolonged

… know this: by saying “so long”

to unclear connection(s)

that propose no interval

… for fictive separation …

2 + 2 = 4 … still

________________________________________

” … ‘In/Out of Place’ …”. Photo: M. Cynog-Evans.

●

Dogen Zenji

(1246)

The whole universe

shatters into a hundred pieces.

In the great death

there is no heaven, no earth.

Once body and mind have turned over

there is only this to say:

Past mind cannot be grasped,

present mind cannot be grasped,

future mind cannot be grasped.

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

___________________________________

___________________________________

___________________________________

Starship prototype SN9 during its test at Boca Chica, Texas – January 2021.

●

What is Elon Musk’s Starship?

Paul Rincon, Science Editor, BBC News

March 4, 2021:

Elon Musk is developing a vehicle that could be a game-changer for space travel. Starship, as it is known, will be a fully reusable transport system capable of carrying up to 100 people to the Red Planet.

The ethos of Leon Musk’s private spaceflight company SpaceX was to make life multi-planetary. This is partly motivated by existentialist threats such as an asteroid collision big enough to wipe out humanity.

●

Herbert Marcuse (1964):

The capabilities (intellectual and material) of contemporary society are immeasurably greater than ever before – which means domination over the individual is immeasurably greater than ever before.

The union of growing productivity and growing destruction; the brinksmanship of annihilation; the surrender of thought, hope, and fear to the decisions of the powers that be; the preservation of misery in the face of unprecedented wealth constitute the most impartial indictment – even if they are not the raison d’être of this society but only its by-product: its sweeping rationality, which propels efficiency and growth, is itself irrational.

________________________________________

___________________________________

CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (64)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西）

Decentred Frames 去中心框架

Posted February 25, 2021

____________________________________

____________________________________

A model depicting a rover on Mars is viewed by visitors to an exhibition at a shopping mall in Beijing on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Andy Wong.)
●
American Institute of Physics–Phys.org February 24, 2021
China says its Tianwen-1 spacecraft has entered a temporary parking orbit around Mars in anticipation of landing a rover on the red planet in the coming months.
A successful bid to land Tianwen-1 would make China only the second country after the U.S. to place a spacecraft on Mars. China’s solar-powered vehicle, about the size of a golf cart, will collect data on underground water and look for evidence that the planet may have once harbored microscopic life.
●
The matter of a given thing is the limit of its appearances as their distance from the thing diminishes.
— Bertrand Russell (1914)
________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

All Together … Then

Mokurai

20.02.21

between thinking (on)

and just before (that)

this occurs to be

more than once a point:

concluded (or not)

and (yes) evermore

an approximate

presence is more/less

than it could become

if time would stop (there)

________________________________________

________________________________________

” … ‘Bindama’/Glass Float (Japan) …”. Photo: M. Cynog-Evans.

●

Muso Soseki

(d. 1351)

The vast expanse of sky

becomes the roof of my hut

I make the mountains my thatch

and the sea my garden

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (63)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西）

Decentred Frames 去中心框架

Posted February 20, 2021

____________________________________

____________________________________

____________________________________

Union of Concerned Scientists, February 11, 2014
The military utility of space has long been recognized and exploited. In fact, the reconnaissance, navigation, and communications functions of space assets are critical to war-making and peace-keeping missions of the US military.
●
Emre Kelly, USA TODAY, February 17, 2021
[NASA’s] Perseverance rover touched down on the Red Planet at 3:55 p.m. EST Thursday, bringing to an end the “seven minutes of terror” that saw a fiery atmospheric entry, and parachute-assisted descent.
…
“Touchdown confirmed! Perseverance is safely on the surface of Mars, ready to begin seeking the signs of past life,” exclaimed NASA engineer Swati Mohan.
All told, the unique landing maneuver successfully decelerated Perceverance from thousands of miles an hour to just 1.7 mph at touchdown. And because of an 11-minute delay in transmissions from Earth to Moon, the rover did it all on its own – no human input was possible.
Mission managers at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California quickly received data from Mars satellites and the rover itself … including the first images from Perseverance: scenes of a desolate, dusty landscape that looks dangerous to humans.

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

AMBIGUOUS (CORPORATE) IMAGE(S) c. 1949
Japan’spost-WWII occupation was carried out by U.S. forces under General Douglas MacArthur (from 1945 to 1952).

During this time period, the term “Made In Occupied Japan” was used – as part of a vigorous economic development scheme (aimed at distributing small/portable products within US and British Commonwealth markets).
In 1949, Mao Zedong established a startlingly comprehensive economic/military construct that would immediately define itself in contradistinction to the American economic/military presence in Japan: The People’s Republic of China.
As embodiments of an epoch, certain rare “Made in Occupied Japan” figurines now function to evoke a manifold Chinese Year of the Ox: 1949/2021…. (See Fig.1 and Fig. 2 – below).

Fig. 1
Hand painted bisque figurine (“Made in Occupied Japan”), c. 1949. H: 16 cm. Photo: M. Cynog-Evans.

Fig. 2.
Hand painted bisque figurine (“Made In Occupied Japan”), c. 1949. H: 16 cm. Photo: M. Cynog-Evans.

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (62)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西）

Decentred Frames 去中心框架

Posted February 12, 2021

_________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________

Su Renshan (1814 – c. 1850), The Immortal Li Tieguai. Hanging scroll; ink on paper. The Metropolitan Museum, New York

Curatorial Record:

Li Tieguai (Li of the Iron Crutch) was one of the legendary Eight Immortals of the Daoist pantheon. Once, when Li was transmigrating outside his body, his seemingly lifeless form was discovered and cremated. When Li returned and found his body gone, he was forced to inhabit the body of a crippled beggar. In Su’s depiction, the immortal is shown sleeping, clutching his knees, his iron staff beside him, the brim of his straw hat framing his body like a halo. A gourd, symbol of immortality because of a paradise magically concealed within, lies on the ground.

________________________________________

” … ‘Unknown Antiquity’ … Li Tieguai (Taoist Immortal) … ‘Year of the Ox’ (2021) …”. Photo: M. Cynog-Evans.
●
The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1837)
________________________________________

________________________________________

Oliver Lees, Aljazeera Media Network, 8 February, 2021

China to build the world’s biggest dam on sacred Tibetan river

In the foothills of the Himalayas, where the ancient Yarlung civilization established the first Tibetan Empire, China plans to build the world largest hydroelectric dam.

In November of last year, China’s state-owned media shared plans for a 60 gigawatt mega-dam on the Yarlung Trangpo river in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR).

The Yarlung Trangpo is of particular significance, as it represents the body of the goddess Dorje Phagmo, one of the highest incarnations in Tibetan culture.

Tempa Gyaltsen Zamilha, the head of Environment and Development at the Tibetan Policy Institute [based in Dharamsala, India], says this reverence for the natural world was born from the Tibetan Plateau’s unique landscape and dates back centuries. But since China, controlled by the Communist Party (CPP), annexed Tibet in 1950, Zamilha says Tibetans have lost all say in what happens on their land.

●

Make the high mountain bow its head; make the river yield its way.

— Mao Zedong (1958)

________________________________________

Mahakala, Protector of the Tent – Tibet, ca. 1650. Distemper and gold on blue silk. The Metropolitan Museum, New York.

Curatorial Record:

This black-ground painting is a visualization image of Mahakala as Panjarantha, the enlightened protector of Buddhism. He tramples a male corpse beneath his feet and displays a flaying knife (kartika) in his right hand and a skull cap (kapola) in his left, implements for cutting through delusions and ignorance.

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

La Chinoise (1967) – a film (directed by Jean-Luc Godard) about a group of young Maoist activists in Paris.
●
Mao Tse Tung believes that the Cultural Revolution he has conceived for China will ultimately affect the destiny of mankind and the future of the universe.
— Jay Tao (May 1968)
________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (61)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西）

Decentred Frames 去中心框架

Posted February 4, 2021

_______________________________________

_______________________________________

_______________________________________

_______________________________________

_______________________________________

CHINA HAS A HEAD START IN THE NEW SPACE RACE

Namrata Goswami, THE DIPLOMAT (Washington, D.C.), May 29, 2019

On January 3, 2019, when China landed the Chang’e 4 probe on the lunar South Pole, a first for humanity, the discourse on outer space shifted forever. For nearly 50 years, since July 20, 1969, we have lived in the Age of Apollo, which enabled humanity’s first steps on the moon. When dawn broke on January 3, 2019, we entered the Age of Chang’e, focused on the long-term settlement of the lunar poles.

Like NASA’s Apollo missions, named for the Greek god, China’s Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) is named after a mythical figure: Chang’e, a Chinese moon goddess. Unlike Apollo, however, China’s Chang’e lunar mission is not a “flags and footprints” enterprise. Instead, like its mythical namesake Chang’e, who made the moon her home, the CLEP is aimed at establishing a permanent presence on the lunar surface by 2036, with an aim to utilize lunar resources like titanium and uranium, as well as iron-ore and water ice for rocket construction and propellant. This in-space manufacturing capability is a vital step to achieve China’s plan for deep space exploitation, to include asteroid mining and build solar power stations in geo-synchronous orbit by 2050.

________________________________________

________________________________________

” … ‘Hold’ …”. Photo: M. Cynog-Evans.

●
Without static you have no continuity.
— Marshall McLuhan (1971)
________________________________________

Incarnate Cosmos

Mokurai

Start with the sun, and the rest

will slowly, slowly happen.

— D.H. Lawrence

composed in (a) disarray …

with (the) prepositional

sense of (some) proportional

proposition of (an) ‘and’

if not (just) yet a ‘no more’ …

incomplete/unfinish(ed) …

finitude can(not) connect

time and tide (and) back again

without (some) reach/retraction

that (still) moves itself onward …

________________________________________

The Moon Goddess Chang’e, Unidentified Artist – China (after Tang Yin, d. 1524). Hanging scroll, ink and colour on paper. The Metropolitan Museum, New York.

●

Curatorial Record:

Tang Yin’s poem, in bold calligraphy, reads:

She was long ago a resident of the Moon Palace,

where phoenixes and cranes gathered and embroidered

banners fluttered in heavenly fragrance.

Chang’e, in love with the gifted scholar,

breaks off [for him] the topmost branch of the cassia tree.

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

bill bissett

‘thers a half moon rising 4 yu n me’

(2021)

___________________________________

_____________________________________

_____________________________________

__________________________________________

________________________________________

_________________________________________

CONTINUUM OF TIME 時間連續體 (60)

READING （EAST/WEST）閱讀（東西）

Decentred Frames 去中心框架

Posted January 28, 2021

__________________________________________

__________________________________________

__________________________________________

__________________________________________

__________________________________________

__________________________________________

__________________________________________

” … (Im)permanence …”. Photo: M. Cynog-Evans.

●

It is illogical to face the present only as an object of enjoyment or tolerance, neglecting to use it as the opportunity to create the future.

— Muso Soseki (d. 1351)

________________________________________

Methodology

Mokurai

04.12.20.

According to an ancient saying,

those who have not yet attained

enlightenment should study the

intent rather than the expression,

while those who have attained

enlightenment should study the

expression rather than the intent.

— Muso Soseki

was it there (when)

at some time or

(even) as if

to have been so

… shall it be said

that far away

… and (just) before

… a ‘no’ longer

continued to

be counted (on)

as ‘an’ again (?)

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

________________________________________

Japan Today, Jan. 23, 2021

TOKYO — Japan has no intention of joining a U.N.Treaty banning nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Yoshida Suga reiterated Friday [22 January], voicing doubts about the effectiveness of an agreement that is not supported by nuclear weapons states.

…

Suga said Japan would continue efforts to “build a bridge” between nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states, including by telling the world of the horrific consequences of using nuclear weapons.

The U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 together killed an estimated 244,000 by the end of that year.

________________________________________

” … ‘Just this is …’.” (Photo: M. Cynog-Evans.)

●

The truth is that everything is One, and this of course is not the numerical one.

— Muso Soseki

________________________________________

________________________________________

bill bissett

(2021)

________________________________________

________________________________________

MOKURAI

2021

Inscription

In Memory of Alan
Gowans (1923-2001)

upon a closing

of contradiction

(in scrutiny) … to

(just) not and (still) less …

can (pre)tense(s) .. there

and open(ing) … more …

be (then) now closed

there (and) finally (?)

________________________________________

________________________________________