The Haiku of Issa

… less progress on actual unraveling of meaning in these haiku today, but, several books on the subject, one of which i have ordered for my library… one thing that i knew, but which is confirmed in my exploration today, no single translation can transmit all the meaning possibilities packed into a great haiku… numerous translations are required…

  • on turning fifty: from this day on, it’s all profit…
    • was fifty the life expectancy when Issa was alive?, that would seem to be the implication…
  • a butterfly flitting, a child crawling, repeat…
    • another one of those ordinary moments
    • but also, butterflies are symbols of rebirth and transformation and are thought to be the souls of the departed… so the image of child and butterfly is one of a conversation between a new being and an old soul…
  • on sea slugs not seaming Japanese…
  • writing poems to please the rich is not art…
    • i can relate to this… art is too much driven by wealth now as it was then…
  • envy of the child being scolded, end of the year…
    • to be a child again?, from the vantage point of old age?…
  • cuckoo singing, nothing special to do, even for the burweed…

First Thoughts

… a successful day yesterday… visited M and P in rehab, had barbecue at C and A’s and did the seven hours driving without much strain… yay me!…

… i didn’t take any family pictures and i am disappointed by that… we were in too much of a rush on the way out…

… it was good to be among people socializing…

… C and A already with a nursery set up in the house… won’t be long before we have a what?, grand nephew or niece?…

… H very happy with the day yesterday… she did little to help prepare, required some prodding to go, was in a really grumpy mood the day before, but yea!, was really glad we went!…

… today is cool and rainy…

… i managed to sleep in, a full eight hours sleep…

… a dream about being hung for some crime that wasn’t a crime and certain i would be reprieved at the last minute, so not too worried…

… rooster screaming in the distance… this is the one H has been telling me about but i don’t usually hear… sounds like the rooster from hell…

Fiona Sleeping

Erwin Olaf

“Palm Springs”, American Dream, Self-Portrait with Alex I, 2018 © Erwin Olaf

… another wonderful artist written up by Miss Rosen…

_ “I always have to be a little bit angry otherwise I don’t work,” Olaf says with a frankness that underlies the heart of a true revolutionary. A rebellion is driven by love, and a desire to tear down false truths propped up by our current world. “I always get the question, ‘Is it real or unreal?’ With photography, why are we thinking we are looking at reality? Olaf asks._1

… Olaf works in a similar vein as Jeff Wall and Gregory Crewdson…

… in addition to the tableau photographs in this article, the full article on Blind Magazine includes some wonderful portrait tableaus…

  1. Erwin Olaf, Miss Rosen: http://www.missrosen.com/erwin-olaf-strange-beaurt/ ↩︎

Judy Chicago

… feminist artist trail blazer…

… a really interesting artist and article about her written by Miss Rosen, another of my favorite reviewers of photographic art and art in general…

I never thought I would live this long,” says Chicago, who is now 82. “Understanding mortality at such an early age gave me an impetus to work. One of the reasons I produced so much work is that I never knew how much time I would have. The other reason is that every time I lost everything – like when The Dinner Party became the piece that nobody wanted to show, or when Congress debated it, or when I had to start all over again – I didn’t know what to do so I went back to my studio and made making art my reward.”1

… this quote inspires me… make the work, something will come of it… it’s the making of the work that is the important act… making it for its own sake, wherever the creative imperative leads you… i suppose this is what i want to do… make the work i am compelled to make, and let the rest take care of itself or not… this blog is part of that… my daily photo walks is part of that… this act of living and recording it is part of that…

… I will keep forging ahead…

  1. Judy Chicago, as quoted by Miss Rosen: https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/53616/1/judy-chicago-art-world-patriarchy-interview-the-flowering-book-memoir ↩︎

There is a Strange Silence

… this morning… usually there is a robin singing loudly outside my window, then by now, some other birds may have joined, sometimes a cardinal or two… there is nothing but the faint high pitched noises the insects make, and, very faintly, a robin in the distance… what is going on?… i suppose this might be the time for a new micro poem?… this one was written yesterday when a robin was singing loudly outside my window…

Before dawn, a robin sings by itself— watch out worms!

Haiku of Issa

  • sin is not possible without talent, on a winter day…
    • if talent is lacking then being lazy on a winter day isn’t a sin?…
  • four or five pennies for the poor, evening rain…
    • the scene set, it is melancholy…
  • a cuckoo singing to the poet and the mountain, the poet and then the mountain…
    • like an echo?…
    • summer harbinger, summer poem…
    • mourning, melancholy, longing… these are the things the bird symbolizes, though, not being Japanese, i don’t naturally pick up on these implied feelings…
  • holes in the wall whistle flute like on an autumn evening…
    • imperfect human-verse…
    • there is a without and within to this poem… without, winter is coming… holes in the wall need fixing… but for now… a pleasant song…
  • a fat priest with one foot out the door on the last prayer…
    • even priests can be half assed…
  • skinny mosquitoes, skinny fleas, skinny children, stupid world…
    • why is the world stupid and not wondrous?…
    • who would think up such a world?…
    • mosquitoes, fleas and children, all in the same world… imagine that…

First Thoughts

… dinner with S and S last night, conversation about writing, posting, making money off writing and posting, or not…

… i talked about not wanting to be on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter anymore… about constructing a new social media environment… it was hard for me to articulate what i wanted to do… i know that what i have been doing isn’t working for me… i think i want it to be newsletter centered… maybe i should start researching the the best way to mount and distribute a newsletter…

… i do some preliminary poking around on Newsletter production and don’t find much that interests me or that i don’t already know about…

… a lot of driving and visiting today… will be pretty exhausted by the end of it… family, priceless… that is… worth the effort…

… we will go see H’s mom in rehab… we will visit our nice, C, and have a barbecue, then we will return home… projected departure time, 7 AM… projected return time, 7 PM… we will bring the dogs…

Lacuna/Intertwine

… this is my kind of photo project, devoid of people, made on walks around the hood… ok, it’s a collaborative project and i don’t do that… but the rest is all there…

… inspire of not being collaborative myself, i do appreciate the work method, which is to make analog pictures of the hood and then send them to another photographer who is doing the same to be printed overlaid… nice pandemic project… worth a look…

… about not shooting people… this comes from a shyness about asking people if i can photograph them and a reluctance to photograph them surreptitiously… and, for the most part, i am interested in the symbolic potential of ordinary objects and scenes devoid of people, though the evidence of civilization is almost always there…

… and, by the way, phase mag is one of my favorite photo mags for it’s emphasis away from photo journalism/documentary and towards conceptual work…

Talking About the Weather

… i am reading an article on the changeabiltiy of the whether and the lessons it has to teach… the article is in Lion’s Roar, a new feed on “Buddhist Wisdom for Our Time” i have added to my set of feeds… i come across this passage…

Buddhists, as Matthieu Ricard says in his luminous new book, Happiness, excerpted in this issue, believe that suffering and unhappiness are quite different things: suffering is the state, the reality, we are all given, but unhappiness is just the way we choose (or do not choose) to respond to it. Those rendered suddenly paraplegic often call themselves happy, after a year or so of adjustment, as frequently as those who win the lottery end up in despair.1

… i am struck by the contrast of who is as likely to be happy as who is not… that it is more possible to adjust to sudden and relatively extreme misfortune as to sudden and relatively extreme good fortune…

… i don’t know if the contrast is an accurate one… there are plenty of stories about how winning the lottery ruins lives, but i am not aware of many about happy adjustment to becoming paraplegic… i suppose i believe it, but would like some data on the point…

… i tend to believe it because humans seem remarkably capable of adjusting to circumstances as they are when those circumstances become more restrictive (though they rarely like loosing ground in the world)… we are ok with boundaries as long as we know what they are… and perhaps the problems involved with sudden wealth are because, suddenly, there are no boundaries… what defined and oriented life before is no longer useful and there has not been time to develop new boundaries and orientations that help with coping…

… as for the main topic of the article, that our inner moods are transitory, like the weather, and they color things one way and another… true enough, but i feel the author is reaching for something that he doesn’t quite get to… “our inner weather seems impossible to foretell,” he claims… though in my experience, when i go to bed, i generally have an inkling about how i will feel when i wake up unless there are disturbances along the way (dogs are good at that sometimes!)…

… day to day inner good weather can be cultivated… certainly, unexpected things happen along the way that alter inner weather, but cultivating a mind that can adjust to changes in circumstances is important life work… we might have goals we are moving towards, and habits and rituals that support our movement forward and our general happiness (or not), but they are worthless if they can’t accommodate sudden shifts in circumstances…

  1. Pico Iyer: https://www.lionsroar.com/whatever-way-the-wind-blows/ ↩︎

The Haiku of Issa

In today’s episode…

  • a woman sings the rice planting song in the shade of a thicket…
    • the rice planting song is a very important folk song in Japan and rice growing in general extremely important…
    • what i note about this poem is a woman is being rendered with affection… as representative of tradition?…
    • rice planting occurs late spring, early summer, but there is no indication that rice planting is going on, only that the song is being sung…
  • pampas grass trembles helplessly…
    • this paints an image in my mind for sure… but what is the meaning behind this anthropomorphic rendering of vibratory grass?…
  • an old dog leading the way to the graves…
    • is the dog a dog, or do the Japanese have a similar way of referring to older men as old dogs?… is it an elderly man leading the way?…
    • is this a literal or metaphorical visit to the cemetery…
    • would this be a winter poem with its reference to old age and death?…
  • the daughter lifts a melon to her cheek in a dream…
    • melons are taken quite seriously in contemporary Japan, carefully nurtured plant by plant and with musk melons fetching as much as $27,000 each…
    • i don’t know if this is a recent development…
    • is this a summer poem?…
    • it feels like a flemish painting to me…
  • a mouse lapping at the Sumida River in the spring rains…
    • this seems like a treacherous enterprise for a small mouse to be lapping at a river swollen by spring rains… perhaps the poem is symbolic of the naivety of the young?…
    • the Sumida River is also the subject of a famous Noh play, Sumida-gawa, about a crazy old woman who comes to find her son only to find he died on the banks of the river… the play was first produced in Osaka in 1784 when Issa would have been 21 years old… the play takes place in the spring…
  • the weight of being born a man on an autumn evening…
    • my question is, is man a gender reference or a humankind reference… in Western culture it would be read as a humankind reference, and thus, the weight of being human is knowing we will die…
    • if more specifically a gender reference, then i am less sure about meaning… the responsibilities that older males acquire during their lifetimes?… the weight of that?…

The Earliest Bird

… for years i have wondered about a bird that sings quite loudly starting very early in the morning, well before sunrise… it seems to be the first bird to start singing and sometimes i swear it sings all night long… i decided to duckduckgo earliest bird to sing… the answer, a robin!… i went to iBird and listened to the dawn song of the Robin… yup, that’s my bird… there is a reason why a robin is often depicted as the bird that gets the worm… i compose a micro poem on the spot…

A robin singing by itself— watch out worms!

First Thougths

… i have not had any alcohol at night for the past week…

… with no alcohol consumption, am i getting a sense of what my sleep patterns are without it?… for the past three nights i have gotten out of bed 5 1/2 to 6 hours after i have gone to bed… is that the sleep i really need these days?…

… i go to have blood drawn today, finally… no reason to believe there is anything wrong, hopefully the blood panel will confirm that…

… i read an article about deleting your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram accounts… i bookmarked it… i’ve never spent much time on Twitter or Linked in, so deleting those accounts would not be such a big deal… Facebook and Instagram would be another story… for now, i have removed the apps from my phone and i haven’t checked either for days…

… i’ve also begun to unplug from daily TV news consumption… this is harder to do because H often has it on all day… yesterday i think i watched almost none… i preferred being in my studio, outside in the garden, in the kitchen making supper, or in another room reading news and articles on photography and art… i believe i am feeling happier…

… i am also beginning to rethink how i pursue my art and making it available for people to see… i will be working on developing a consistent monthly email… i will be working on building my email list… i will be working on sending portfolio publications to those i know in charge of galleries… one reason i may want to keep my toe in the water on social media is to be able to get the word out when there is a show or a new publication…

Micro Poem

Walking up a long, steep hill- mind set against stopping.

Walking

… cloudless morning, perfect temperature…

… Fiona is with me today so H can sleep in… we are sitting at a picnic table in Long Dock Park, enjoying the air, sounds and smells…

… noting that my body does not feel as tiptop as i would like it to…

… thinking more about the new direction i would like to head… thinking i would like to concentrate on sending out a monthly news letter…

… some research into Greek mythology… Ariadne and Arachne… i learn that Arachne might be a better myth reference for the wires and utility pole series…

… this used to be the Rivers and Estuaries Institute, not sure if it still is, there is a big Clarkson University logo on the front door…

… Clarkson is also renovating an old industrial building near by…

… now sitting by the banks of Fishkill Creek… we’ve had lots of rain lately… the creek is swollen…

Graciela Iturbide

Graciela Iturbide

Some thoughts from Graciela Iturbide, “regarded as one of the most influential Latin American photographers of the past four decades.”1

  1. Marina Watson Pelaez: https://www.1854.photography/2021/07/any-answers-graciela-iturbide/ ↩︎

The Haiku of Issa

… studying and trying to interpret the Haiku of Basho, Buson and Issa, and trying to write my own micro poems has had an interesting effect… it has led me to begin withdrawing from Instagram and Facebook and to reconsider the attitude with which i make art… i have decided that it might be better simply to make and let the universe decide what will come from it…

… on with the Issa haiku…

  • napping at mid day, the song of rice planters, shame…
    • are midday naps a luxury in a world that requires our labor to make order in chaos and put food on our tables?… planting rice is a spring activity, so this is a spring poem?
  • melons don’t notice the intentions of thieves…
    • human motivation is of no concern to the greater part of the cosmos…
  • a pretty girl munching and rustling wrapped up rice cake…
    • for a heterosexual poet, a pretty girl is always worth paying attention to…
  • warning the cricket that rolling over is immanent…
    • crickets are symbols of good fortune in Chinese, Japanese and Native American culture… nobody would want to kill one, intentionally or accidentally…
    • Buddhists tend to honor all living things…
  • an old dog listening for the songs of earthworms?…
    • not sure what to make of this one…
    • sleeping on its side on the ground?…
    • a poem about old age and death?…
  • a crow walking along the field as if it were tilling it…
    • hmmm… the crow acting as if it owns the field… following its nature?…
    • could it be any other way?…
    • crows are about transformation… they move in and clean up the carrion of battles…
    • crows are message carriers…
    • all birds are opportunities for awakening and becoming present…
    • the crow is an autumn and winter bird…
    • the crow is a dusk, or end of day bird…
    • the crow might therefor be associated with old age, and since often thought of as bearers of messages and symbols of rebirth, might have something to do with the wisdom of old age which moves through the fields tilling them for rebirth in the spring…

First Thoughts

… bird tweeting outside my window… not sure what kind it is but it starts singing well before the other birds do in the morning…

… no alcohol three nights running, generally feel better this morning and any morning where i haven’t drunk the night before… even modest amounts seem to have negative impact… have i lost tolerance for it?…

… i will have a blood panel done on Friday… i am nervous about it… i am always nervous about it… i always imagine that something bad will come back in the results… on the other hand, it will be good to be back in the routine…

… i have been following a line of thought in my head about being a Buddha… the base question being, can you be a Buddha without being known as a Buddha?… i have only skimmed the surface of Buddhism though it attracts me more than most religious systems do… i suspect the Buddhist answer to the question is “of course!”… and, possibly, “it is the preferred way!”… and possibly, “it is the only way!”… it may sound like a silly question, but i don’t think it is, especially when framed within a consumer society that places great emphasis on celebrity and accomplishment that people know about… if one were to loosely equate an instagram influencer with a Buddha, then the point is made clear… one of many things Buddhism is about is letting go of ego… for an influencer, having as many followers as possible is the goal, which is all about ego… that is, being known as an influencer, someone that should be listened to and emulated… my sense is that a true Buddha does not proclaim their Buddhahood, nor seek to have others proclaim it… a true Buddha does not seek followers… the world of people can recognize Buddhahood or not, and when recognized, they can learn from it or not… each of us has to decide to seek Buddhahood or not… if we decide to seek it, we do so because of what we might come to understand about ourselves and the cosmos… not because we will become renowned Buddhas…

… social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are built to addict people to a culture of liking and following… they lead us astray to anti-Buddhahood… the anti-Buddhahood of attention paid to me…

… i have been very susceptible to this anti-Buddhahood… i am changing that… i am withdrawing from Instagram and Facebook… i have removed their apps from my phone as of yesterday… i will only check in through my desktop computer, once a day at best… interestingly, today i received an email saying someone i know has posted on Facebook… i have never received an email like that before… the anti-Buddha beast senses my attempt to withdraw and is trying to suck me back in…

Scenes From a Walk

Photographs taken during my walk but processed later…

Walking

… what constitutes an important life?… is this anything that one should strive for?… or, is anonymity something to be welcomed, even while leading a good life?… it comes back to immortality… wanting to continue to exist in some fashion for all time… how is it possible that the cosmos cares?…

… i have climbed up the side of the mountain to my favorite spot alongside the stream the trail follows…

… the water tumbles over the rocks quietly…

… some photos…

Yvette Tang

Yvette Tang

… some amazing abstract work…

… her website…

This Week in Photography, Jonathan Blaustein

… one of my favorite photography reviewers is Jonathan Blaustein… in this review of portfolios from LACP he presents a stellar and wide ranging group of photographers that are well worth looking at…

The Haiku of Issa

  • tiger moth enjoying itself, the poet asks how much…
    • wasn’t able to find much about moth symbolism, maybe a connection to departed ancestors…
  • horse approaching a sparrow, will the sparrow move?…
    • the horse is considered a god and has been worshipped since antiquity
    • the sparrow, on the other hand, i didn’t find much except a fairy tale, the Tongue-Cut Sparrow, which is a morality tale about greed and friendship…
    • the sparrow might be seen as a symbol of strength and industriousness and in juxtaposition to the horse might be about the wisdom of knowing limitations?…
  • apparently, the mountain cuckoo is a crybaby…
    • ahh, here we have more depth to pursue…
    • _The cuckoo has long been popular as a subject in Japanese literature and Haiku, possibly to do with the word having five syllables; and in literature and myth it is associated with the longing of the spirits of the dead to return to their loved ones. Mourning, longing, melancholy; these are suggested maybe by its song and perhaps signals its persistent use in woodblock prints.1
  • dew drops falling by ones and twos, it’s a wonderful life…
  • a query to scarecrow, where does cold come from?…
    • a fall into winter poem?… in Japanese culture, scarecrows are thought of as being all knowing… i wonder if there is linkage between scarecrow in the Wizzard of Oz and scarecrows in Japanese culture?…
  • apparently the moon bends to the shape of cold…
    • in Buddhism, the moon is a symbol of inner enlightenment, so this poem might be about old age and wisdom…
    • interestingly, in the Shinto religion, the moon is possibly male, but also inconclusively gendered, more appropriate to the pronoun they… the major achievement of Tsukuyomi (in the male form), who was married to Amaterasu (sun goddess), was to kill Ukemochi (the goddess of food) because she she spat out and coughed up food for her guests (appalling etiquette as far as Tukuyomi was concerned)… when Amaterasu found out she promptly divorced him and relegated him to the night sky2…
    • Issa was a lay priest in the Buddhist religion…
    • i don’t think this poem channels the Shinto moon god…

  1. Toshidama: https://toshidama.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/the-enigmatic-japanese-cuckoo/ ↩︎

  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto ↩︎

First Thoughts

… in bed at 9 PM, awake at 3 AM, is six hours all i need?…

… Heather Cox Richardson is all about the arrest of Billionaire Thomas Barrack for obstruction of justice and lobbying for a foreign government without disclosure… as i am reading about the connections between rich and powerful people i have the thought, what does an ordinary life, my ordinary life, amount to?…

… yesterday Jeff Bezos flew into space on rocketry and capsule he paid for… he and the crew returned to earth safely… the beginning of space travel?… space tourism?… i still am of the opinion that it is a waste of time to put people in space… it’s really the machines we need to send there…

… no alcohol last night… did i sleep better?… i’m not sure, certainly didn’t sleep longer…

… no appointments, no encumbrances, a longer walk is called for… maybe up the mountain today… haven’t done that in a while and it’s a good workout…

… i am back to processing most of my pictures to black and white… the exception is the occasional image for which color is the primary point of the image… i very much like the aesthetic of black and white and often struggle to get color photographs to be natural…

… i have been processing the thought that religious ignorance is an attempt to achieve immortality… the first and most fundamental thing we try to be ignorant about is our own death… we struggle to face it… religion aids us in being ignorant… this isn’t formulated quite right… maybe it is more that we give ourselves over to religious superstition so that we can believe in immortality… not all religions… but most of them… most of them offer the balm that life of some sort continues after death… so this is a kind of willful ignorance to give ourselves the perception that life does not end, it just transforms…

Scenes From a Walk

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