james reynolds--andrea palladio

''the detail most used by palladio in all manner of buildings he called his "winged device". actually this reference is to the window that has become synonymous with the name of palladio down the years. as time went on, however, this immensely versatile man found many more ways of expressing the quality of "lift" and airiness that he so much admired.

''key stones over windows became winged. arched doorways sprang into being, full winged as the victory of samothrace. colonades threw crescent-shaped arms in a gesture of welcome from either side of the main bulk of the house. drawings for pillared porticoes, as in the villa giovanelli, were altered from the usual straight line and given wings, imparting an indescribable quality of grace to the whole frontage.''

james reynolds, andrea palladio and the winged device.

russell page--bedside gardening

''andre malraux once spoke to me of classical chinese books on landscape gardening and of how the chinese landscape maker strove above all that his garden should reflect and symbolize not only the changes of the seasons but the passage of each day. he wondered whether it was possible even in china to induce the morning and evening mists to linger over shallow lotus-ponds and strange shaped rocks.''

russell page, the education of a gardener.

nancy wasserman--rubberpratyhara

''in my opinion, the most effective instruction available to prepare oneself for the practice of pratyhara remains aleister crowley's liber iii vel jugorum. ... crowley's instructions in liber jugorum state that the aspirant should, with each transgression, make a cut in his forearm with a razor blade. this may not be a viable option for many people. i have had good results using a thick, tight rubber band around the wrist. with each transgression, a sound thwack did the trick!''

nancy wasserman; yoga for magic, chapter-pratyhara.

samuel beckett--shape of content

''i am interested in the shape of ideas even if i do not believe in them. there is a wonderful sentance in augustine i wish i could remember the latin it is even finer in latin than in english. "do not despair; one of the thieves was saved do not presume; one of the thieves was damned." that sentence has a wonderful shape. it is the shape that matters.''

harold hobson; samuel beckett, dramatist of the year. international theatre annual no.i, pp.153-155.

seven acres--seven billion

the walled city of kowloon, 35'thousand people living on almost 7 acres of land in 10 to 14 floor-high buildings. at the same density the 2'and a half million people living in toronto could be housed in a little less than a square mile. while the population of canada at a rounded off 35'million could be housed in an area of 11 square miles and the 7'billion people of the world could be housed at the same density in a little more than 2'thousand square miles.

starry proprioception

''if we are to use the language of trance in our investigation, we need both a paradigm--a conceptual example coordinating our inner life with meditation--and a technique for realizing the paradigm, the necessary paradigm is called proprioception; the technique is yoga. ...

''proprioception is a physiologicaly well-defined but incompletely understood, source of internal experience. ... the proprioceptive nervous system is the neurology of bodily feeling. by means of the proprioceptive system your body is made known to your brain. a general visceral experience--a proprioception--can be sensed by any one with a minimum of concentration. proprioception is internal touch but in the expansive sense of proprioception we are adopting, the term applies to how you see, hear, smell, and taste your body as well ...''

j. n. sansonese, the body of myth.

russell page--bedside gardening

[modulor fish]

''much of chinese gardening would seem to have been within walls this led in a way that europe has never known, to the invention and construction of fantastic artificial landscapes within formal enclosures. chinese gardeners made little mountains of fretted stones dragged from the bottom of an indo-chinese bay. they worked on each crevice and hole and carved them into even wilder shapes; they set them in strangely shaped pools canopied by the rounded glaucous leaves of lotus. these sheltered shoals of gold-fish bred specially for their protruding eyes and for their waving silken fins of silver and orange, gold and black.''

russell page, the education of a gardener.

sadakichi hartmann--chrysanthemum garden

sadakichi hartmann carried the banner of chrysanthemum-lovers most of his life. some of his writings, saved from the ruins of his cats-claw desert-garden shed by his daughter, make up the sadakichi hartmann collection at uc-riverside. "white chrysanthemums" a book of notes on chrysanthemums, contains a selection of those notes.

some of the notes tell of the soils and waters chrysanthemums have been known to benifit from, others describe the insects and pests injurous to the greens of the plant and in some notes he explains how they are pruned to improve their flowering.

these are mixed in with notes on the history of chrysanthemum growing, its roots in the grey mists of antiquity and references he found to the art in the writings of other gardeners. some notes, more biographical, muse on well known gardeners of chrysanthemums, comparing and contrasting them against those who consider the chrysanthemum a weed to eradicate.

the book includes some of his own memories of staging chrysanthemum light shows, with tips and advice for others who want to do the same suggested between the lines. in several of the chapters are notes in which he tells of his travels around the world looking for other chrysanthemum lovers. his memories of those gardeners who befriended him and less pleasant memories of those who pretended to love chrysanthemums. one mention is made in this selection of a winter he soujourned in canada, no mention of chrysanthemums or chrysanthemum lovers here. a glimpse of the world of the chrysanthemum he lived and promoted to the end.

guide to the sadakichi hartmann papers.

aleister crowley--pratyhara

''he should also practice assiduosly liber iii. vel jugorum. the essence of this practice is that you select a familiar thought, word, or gesture, one which automatically recurs fairly often during the day, and every time you are betrayed into using it, cut yourself sharply upon the forearm with a convenient instrument.''

aleister crowley, eight lectures on yoga.

steven heller--tilting at swastikas

steven heller is a graphic designer, and a jew, with a place in his heart for the swastika. he wrote an essay on his unorthodox feelings for the sign in which he asks if its use by the nazi party before and during world war two has made it a symbol beyond redemption. or, can a generation of people who have been taught to see only the soul symbol of the nazis when they see a swastika ever see other swastikas as symbolic of something else?

heller has spent some time reading the writings of others on the swastika and before answering his question he summarizes the evidence historians have discovered about the sign. where it was used, and the meanings it had attached to it over its millenia long use by various people and cultures.

the original source of the sign may not be known and what object it represents in graphic shape is disagreed on by historians, though it seems they all think it was something familiar to the cultures that used it. some of the things suggested by the historians are a stylized solar circle, or a lunar disc, an octopus with its eight arms clasped two by two in prayer or a conch shell, maybe even a diagram of a sacred fire making drill.

he explains that the sign has been used for over two thousand years and while the meaning may have changed during such a long time one of the meanings it may of had seems to be luck or good fortune, something like a four leaf clover or rabbits foot. much the way it continues to be used in some non-euroese cultures to this day. heller goes on to explain how these earlier innocent meanings flow into the adoption of a tilted-swastika in a circle by the nazis as a symbol of aryan purity, and speculates on how this use contributed to the suppression of such an eye-pleasing graphic design.

he concludes with the ongoing battle between neo-nazi groups on one side who use the tilted swastika balanced on a corner, as a symbol of aryan superiority; and on the other side new age groups who want to revive the use of the other swastika--sitting flat on one of the bent arms--by educating people who only know of the nazi swastika about the old meanings of luck and good fortune they believe it had to begin with.

and then heller answers the question he asked in the title of his essay.

steven heller, the swastika: symbol beyond redemption?

heart clapping

''now the point is this: your auditory nerves are not stimulated solely by external vibrations. suppose you are in an utterly silent place. even here, it's not quiet. your body is itself the source of many vibrations. ... by definition, a stimulation of the auditory nerve is a sound. it doesn't matter whether the stimulus originates in the ear drum or within the nerve itself. ... thus the absence of sensation cannot mean an absolute absence or nothingness, ...

''any stimulation, external or internal, of the auditory nerves is a sound that can be heard by the brain. ... thoughts and even moral dilemmas are minute chemical and electrical processes. your so-called lifestyle, your emotions, your moral predicament can be sensed in the physics of your brain. the auditory nerves hear these things too. and suddenly, the sound of one hand clapping has become the sound of your soul. ...

''both the veda and maitriya upansad of the ancient hindus, who were indo europeans, tell of how the universe was created by sabda brahman, the "eternal sound" that created everything--and still inheres in everything--but is itself uncreated: "begotten, not made," as the nicene creed expresses it in "john i, verse i: in the begining was a sound, and the sound was with god, and the sound was god, all things were made by that sound, and nothing not made by that sound was made."

''is the sound of the auditory nerve that same sound? can either sound be traced to the omnipresent static of the universe? can you hear the three-degree blackbody radiation? ... can you draw a perfect breath? can you tell your heart when to beat? as it turns out you can do all of the above. but first we must refine and deepen our understanding of the inner world.

''if we are to use the language of trance in our investigation, we need both a paradigm--a conceptual example coordinating our inner life with meditation--and a technique for realizing the paradigm, the necessary paradigm is called proprioception; the technique is yoga. ...

''proprioception is a physiologicaly well-defined but incompletely understood, source of internal experience. ... the proprioceptive nervous system is the neurology of bodily feeling. by means of the proprioceptive system your body is made known to your brain. a general visceral experience--a proprioception--can be sensed by any one with a minimum of concentration. proprioception is internal touch but in the expansive sense of proprioception we are adopting, the term applies to how you see, hear, smell, and taste your body as well ...

''experimental investigations of biofeedback in humans and animals over the past thirty-five years provide sufficient ground for assuming that control of hyperaware states occur predictably under a variety of conditions. to cite only one example, it has been conclusively demonstrated that animals can be taught to control many bodily functions such as heart rate, ...

''the vagus nerve is the tenth cranial nerve. one of its many branches [rami] supplies nerves of sensation to the heart. when for instance, you feel a twinge in your heart the sensation travels along a sensory ramus of the vagus nerve. keeping in mind the fact of proprioception let us look anew at the question, can you tell your heart when to beat?''

j. nigro. sansonese, the body of myth.

elias canetti--exoticism

''you step into the coolness of the house and close the door behind you ... few windows in these houses look onto the street. sometimes none at all; everything opens onto the courtyard, and this lies open to the sky. only through the courtyard do you retain a mellow, tempered link with the world around you.

''but you can also go up on the roof and see all the flat roofs of the city at once. the impression is one of levelness, of everything being built in a series of broad terraces. you feel you could walk all over the city up there. the narrow streets present no obstacle; you cannot see them, you forget that there are streets. ... the space above the rooftops is peopled with swallows ...

''the first time i went up on the roof of my friends house i was full of expectaions, ... but he started to fidget when tiring of the far off, i became curious as to the near at hand. he caught me glancing down into the courtyard of the house next door, ... "that's not done here' he said "you mustn't do that, i've often been warned against it. it's considered indelicate to take notice of what goes on next door. its considered bad manners. in fact one oughtn't to show oneself on the roof at all, and a man certainly not. sometimes the womenfolk go up on the roof, and they want to feel undisturbed" ...

''"but surely you can sit up on your own roof, cant you? if you see some one on the next roof its not your fault"--"then i must look away i must show how uninterested i am"--"but then one's less free on the roof then one is on the street" i protested. "certainly" he said "one wants to avoid getting a bad name with one's neighbors"
i watched the swallows and envied the way they went swooping at their ease over three, five, ten roofs at a time.''

elias canetti, voices of marrakesh.

lautremont--maldoror

''flocks of starlings have a way of flying natural to them, which seems to be governed by a uniform and regular tactic like that of a disciplined army obeying with precision the voice of a single general. the starlings obey the voice of instinct, and this prompts them always to draw in toward the center of the group, while the rapidity of their flight carries them unceasinly beyond that point;

''so that this multitude of birds, thus united by a common tendancy toward the same hypnotic point, coming and going unceasingly, circulating and recrossing in every direction, forms a sort of agitated whirlpool,

''the entire mass of which, with out following particular direction, seems to have a general movement of evolution upon itself resulting from the particular circulatory motions of each of its members, and in which the center, perpetually tending to increase, but continually held in, is repulsed by the contrary strains of the environing lines that bear upon it,

''and constantly more compressed than any one of these lines, which are themselves compressed the more as they approach closer to the center despite this singular manner of eddying, the starlings do not cleave through the air with any less rare a swiftness, and gain noticeably each second a precious step toward the end of their fatigue and the goal of their pilgrimage.''

lautremont, maldoror--in a new translation by guy wernham.

sadakichi hartmann--chrysanthemum dance

"nothing remains but a flash of color, a sudden movement, the twinkling of limbs, an evanescent attitide--a momentary feast for the eye. for one moment it is all motion, joy, ectasy, delerium, there-upon merely an intangible souvenir. ... no other art is so completely dependent on momentary inspiration and influences."

sadakichi hartmann, white chrysanthemums.

robert temple--ice lens

''chinese optics is also discussed by jin quipeng, ... in his essay, jin quotes zhang hua of the jin dynasty (265-420 ad) in his book record of the investigation of things; 'cut a piece of ice into a sphere, lift it in the sun and let its shadow fall on a piece of moxa [tinder made from an artemesia related to wormwood]; the moxa will be set alight'. this is the earliest surviving record which i have found of ice being cut to make a burning-lens; later in the book we encounter a frenchman who did the same thing in the 18th century.''

robert temple, the crystal sun; section 2, chapter 2, note 13.

ice camera at youtube.

something predictable

[reactions to the swastika.]

a table with trays of beads outside a store on yonge street, among the designs for sale are some flat square stone beads. they are maybe an inch by an inch to a side, an eighth of an inch thick. four engraved lines ornament the surface of these beads. they are about one quarter the length of the sides of the bead, arranged so there is one line to each side and one line, about a quarter of the length of the sides, from each corner. the arrangement of lines makes a well known motif with the unengraved surface of the bead.

standing at the table are two women, tourists, or immigrants with german or dutch accents, both of them casually browsing through the bins of loose beads. the one nearest me picks up one of the flat square beads in her hand, i wonder "when will she notice what she has in her hand", i am waiting for it as she rubs her thumb over the surface of the beads engraved surface, waiting, and then "achhh? ********!", she exclaims to her companion as she drops the bead back in the bin, rubbing her thumb against her fingers and moving on.

russell page--bedside gardening

"pink and yellow water lillies, thalia dealbata with its lance-like leaves and spiky mauve flowerheads, cyperus and--the glory of any pool--the pink lotus nelumbium nelumbo. i know of no plant that gives me more pleasure than the lotus, with its circular glaucous green leaves so often with a dewdrop caught where stem and leaf meet, with the architectural splendour of its pointed soft pink petals and with the strange beauty of the seed pods, like cones with flattened tops pierced with about eighteen holes, each enclosing a hard round seed. at first, while the whole seed head is still green and moist, each seed is held firmly in a little socket which becomes looser as the head dries and the seeds eventually fall out."


russell page, the education of a gardener.