travelling along the contours

THE SHAPES OF LEAVES

Ginkgo, cottonwood, pin oak,
sweet gum, tulip tree:
our emotions resemble leaves and alive
to their shapes we are nourished.

Have you felt the ex- panse and contours of grief
along the edges of
a big Norway maple?
Have you winced at
the orange flare

searing the curves of a curling dogwood?
I have seen from the air logged islands,
each with a network of branching
gravel roads,

and felt a moment of
pure anger, aspen gold.
I have seen sandhill cranes moving in an open field,
a single white whooping crane in the flock.

And I have traveled along the contours
of leaves that have no name. Here
where the air is wet and the light is cool,

I feel what others are thinking and do not speak,
I know pleasure in the veins of a sugar maple,
I am living at the edge of a new leaf.

Arthur Sze

From The Redshifting Web:
Poems 1970-1998,
published by Copper Canyon Press, 1998. Copyright © 1998 by Arthur Sze.


i discovered a cool blog today; its author and i sometimes think alike.

i wear purple too

today is the second anniversary of my first japonisme post!!

i have learned so much, and met so many fascin- ating people!

thank you all for the many treasures you've added to this blog.

it's also the 16th anniversary of beginning my 12-variety iris garden!

dead my old fine hopes
and dry my dreams
but still...
iris, blue each spring

shushiri 1

1794

.垣津旗よりあの虹は起りけん
kakitsubata yori ano niji wa okoriken

irises--
where that rainbow
starts from

Issa imagines that the rainbow has arisen from blooming irises--the intense, showy colors of the flowers continuing in bold streks upward, into the sky, forming the rainbow. It's interesting that "iris" derives from the Greek word for "rainbow." Issa could not have known this, but he intuits the same connection that exists in many Western languages. The rainbow is a flower in the sky; irises are rainbows on earth.

1814

.我庵や花のちいさいかきつばた
waga io ya hana no chiisai kakitsubata

at my hut
an iris with the tiniest
blossoms

Issa bends down low to acknolwedge and appreciate a small flower. There is a world of meaning in this simple act of paying reverent attention to things that other people ignore. The tiny-petaled iris is as precious as the big, bold chrysanthemum. Issa's approach to the living universe is democratic.

1824

.鶺鴒は神の使かかきつばた
sekirei wa kami no tsukai ka kakitsubata

running messages, wagtail
for the shrine's god?
irises

The wagtail (sekirei) is a bird with long, wagging tail feathers. Though he doesn't say so explicitly, Issa implies that the setting of the haiku is a Shinto shrine. 2

laborers day

THE NEW COLOSSUS

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride
from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome;
her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor
that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands,
your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse
of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus

UNION MAID

There once was a union maid, she never was afraid
Of goons and ginks and company finks and the deputy sheriffs who made the raid.

She went to the union hall
when a meeting it was called,
And when the Legion boys come 'round
She always stood her ground.

Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking
to the union,
I'm sticking to the union, I'm sticking to the union.
Oh, you can't scare me,
I'm sticking to the union,
I'm sticking to the union 'til the day I die.

This union maid was
wise to the tricks of company spies,
She couldn't be fooled by a company stool,
she'd always organize the guys.

She always got her way
when she struck for better pay.
She'd show her card to the National Guard
And this is what she'd say

You gals who want to be free, just take a tip from me;
Get you a man who's a union man and join the ladies' auxiliary.
Married life ain't hard
when you got a union card,
A union man has a happy life
when he's got a union wife.

Woody Guthrie (1940)

from the hut of the phantom dwelling

An eminent monk of Mount Kora in Tsukushi, the son of a certain Kai of the Kamo Shrine, recently journeyed to Kyoto, and I got someone to ask him if he would write a plaque for me. He readily agreed, dipped his brush, and wrote the three characters Gen-ju-an. He sent me the plaque, and I keep it as a memorial of my grass hut.

Mountain home, traveler's rest -- call it what you will, it's hardly the kind of place where you need any great store of belongings. A cypress bark hat from Kiso, a sedge rain cape from Koshi-that's all that hang on the post above my pillow.

In the daytime, I'm once in a while diverted by people who stop to visit. The old man who takes care of the shrine or the men from the village come and tell me about the wild boar who's been eating the rice plants, the rabbits that are getting at the bean patches, tales of farm matters that are all quite new to me.

And when the sun has begun to sink behind the rim of the hills, I sit quietly in the evening waiting for the moon so I may have my shadow for company, or light a lamp and discuss right and wrong with my silhouette.

But when all has been said, I'm not really the kind who is so completely enamored of solitude that he must hide every trace of himself away in the mountains and wilds. It's just that, troubled by frequent illness and weary of dealing with people, I've come to dislike society.

Again and again I think of the mistakes I've made in my clumsiness over the course of the years. There was a time when I envied those who had government offices or impressive domains, and on another occasion I considered entering the precincts of the Buddha and the teaching rooms of the patriarchs.

Instead, I've worn out my body in journeys that are as aimless as the winds and clouds, and expended my feelings on flowers and birds. But somehow I've been able to make a living this way, and so in the end, unskilled and talentless as I am, I give myself wholly to this one concern, poetry.

Bo Juyi worked so hard at it that he almost ruined his five vital organs, and Du Fu grew lean and emaciated because of it. As far as intelligence or the quality of our writings go, I can never compare to such men. And yet we all in the end live, do we not, in a phantom dwelling? But enough of that -- I'm off to bed.

Bashô 1

it was fascination, i know

we've talked endlessly about the west's fascination with japanese prints, and some about the inverse. but only very little about the world's fascination with the world's fascination with japanese prints. and the fascination with the people fascinated with the western posters produced by those fascinated with the japanese prints. if you get what i mean.

the woodblock prints are featured in many of william merritt chase's prints that have been featured here; in keeping with the contemporary vogue for Japonisme, Chase adopted Japanese props. He often tilted the picture plane and cropped the composition, devices common to Japanese prints. 1

and note the delight and thoughtfulness with which these viewers are depicted.

we've also met robert blum. this piece was likely painted while he was in japan. is she viewing degas or utamaro?

and on the right, self paints self viewing self. in another costume?

click on the image to be transported to another realm.

i wish i could tell exactly what is being looked at in these images. in most of them, you can if the print or poster is eastern or western, but in how many of them are the creators showing their own work being viewed?

is this poster being viewed a third known image by otto fischer?

Leonnec was to Rene Vincent what Gene Vincent was to Elvis--a gifted emulator, lacking the emotive depth and range of the great one, but offering works of unique, very effective quirkiness. Whereas Rene Vincent could charm with a cosmopolitan dash, Leonnec mined the humor and poignancy of a rustic France coming up against the modern world. 2

i think it's pretty clear manuel robbe had his viewers viewing themselves. or each other. he has many images similar to these; sometimes the women are poring over pieces of music or picture books. was it possible for them to look at prints of themselves looking at prints?

the spa- nish and the po- lish lov- ed the japanese.

the germans loved the italians and the french loved, well, the french. and we all know tissot's love of those loving the japanese.

and therefore, what we have here is your fascination watching my fascination with artists whose fascination with prints drove them to create images of people fascinated with images of... themselves?

so what else is new?

it's a small world after all....

People, April 8, 1991

No Pussycat in Court, Peggy Lee Nips Disney for $3.8 Million



The stars of the film were cartoon canines, but the soul of the 1955 Disney classic Lady and the Tramp belonged to jazz diva Peggy Lee. In addition to penning the lyrics to the film’s six songs, Lee slunk through a Pekingese torch song; provided the dulcet tones of Darling, Lady’s mistress; and purred the terrorist intentions of the felines Si and Am, whose high-pitched harmonies burned the lyric "We are Siamese, if you please" into the minds of a generation. Or two.

Unfortunately for Lee, who earned $3,500 for her contributions to Lady, her contract was written long before videos. As a result, though the Walt Disney Company has made about $35 million from video sales of the animated classic, Lee’s share of the proceeds didn’t amount to a tray of used kitty litter. Now, in response to a lawsuit brought by Lee, a Los Angeles jury has decided to rectify the situation by awarding her $3.8 million.

Although Disney is expected to appeal, Lee, now 70, is happy to be out of the courtroom for now. "The strain of the trial was tough on me," says the chanteuse, who has diabetes and heart problems and has been wheelchair-bound since a 1987 fall in Las Vegas. She says the money will ensure a financial legacy for her daughter, Nicki, 47, who manages and art gallery in Ketchum, Idaho, and her three grandchildren, now in their 20s.

"You know, they always say, ‘Don’t mess with the Mouse,’" says Lee, referring to Disney’s big-eared symbol and standard-bearer. "I’m glad that my rights were vindicated."

author unknown 1

(merci to the vintage poster blog and thank you to the allure blog for wondrous images.)

take three

okay--here's my latest theory: in her perhaps-too-clever-for-her-own-good attempt to create her own 'chop,' as was the thing-to-do at that time, she reversed her E, thus creating what looked more like a B than a creative reuse of her own initials.

the font i used was a demo of a jessie m king font from scriptorium. jessie m king was also part of the glasgow scene at the same time, and in fact the two women did projects together.

I can hear it now:

Ethel Larcombe: Hey! check out this cool new chop I made!

Jessie M. King: Good try, Elly, but it looks too much like a B!

EL: Oh Jess, you're always such a buzz-kill.

JMK: You just wait -- a hundred years from now, nobody will know who did your most famous drawing!

EL: Now you're saying I've already peaked??!