Hyborian Bridge 67

So, illusion is where there is no flow of line and everything becomes a scripted routine. The illusion has to appear very convincing so it has to appear as though there’s action but, in fact, without a flow the action has no fighting grace, and is pure routine.

From pop, a good example would be Ed Sheeran, who made a mundane routine (and career) out of KT Tunstall’s stirling debut (Hyborian Bridge 63). Grace is expression, and so has a spontaneity of feeling; the spontaneity comes out of training (technique, practice). Grace Slick says much the same in Hyborian Bridge 62.

My problem was that I detested performing without lots of rehearsals, without meticulous preparation.. until I have the technical side down perfectly. (page 110)

There are continually two things going on; nothing is pure technique and nothing is pure spontaneity. The former would be a robot and the latter a wild beast (Bruce Lee Denizens of the Netherworld 3). That’s mainly why the phrase “the vanishing point of technique” is quite descriptive; there is no physical content so it is something that is pure illusion (Pictorial 46, pictorial 50/2, Drama2).

The physical content is the physique as it relates to the universe (see Madame Blavatsky C14). There are no verifiable proofs such as DNA, which are scripted routines. DNA is pure technique and has no relation to the physical universe (of primeval rhythm and shape).

This comes from Bruce Lee’s phrase, “A war between a robot and a wild beast”, to describe his fighting style. There are two different realities and they can only come together through expression (line).

The physical universe of rhythm and shape, balance and proportion is an expression of Earth’s physical rotation against the cosmos of sun, moon, planets and stars. It’s a place with no verifiable proofs (of inductive empiricism a la Newton), a place of physique and psyche.

That’s partly why I was saying (Pictorial 51) Weird Tales was the folk/fairy tale poetry of the 30s; the psyche expressed through a very physical universe of warriors, weirds, harlots and heroines. The wizard of Howard’s Hyboria is the illusionist who seeks to distort physical reality for nefarious aims – see the encircling “lens” of the master of Yimsha (Hyborian Bridge 61/1)

The wizard seeks to articulate what is inchoate in reason, and by such means create an articulate realm of scripted routine (spells). Welcome to the modern world! It started with Newton’s lenses (C4) and ends with the world of scripted routines we have come to know, be it monetary, numerical, algorithms, DNA or quantum consciousness (see Slick’s quote Hyborian Bridge 62/1)

On the latter, I wrote to Hameroff that a worm is a sensual slitherer that symbolises destruction and creation. That’s its being in the physical universe of moon and stars, of blood, death and rebirth in a universe of physical action.

That is, the hunt, Diana and her hounds baying under the moon (she’s singing, maybe). This entire universe of predatory action, running with bow, blood and gamesmanship (Elrig Pictorial 42, 43) is denied by the illusory world of scripted routines.

Don’t worry, I’m not picking on anyone since it applies to almost everything that is scripted as opposed to active. The reason is there can be no revival without decay. Noto’s universe of blood in “Red lace” (Pictorial 51) is bestial and macabre, and Sonja loses her sight to the blood of a centaur; but the blood of a roc restores it.

 Red Sonja #10

  Red Sonja #11(c) RSE

Why? Who knows? Perhaps the inarticulate cycle of decay and rebirth; the physical universe doesn’t have all the answers since that’s the province of acolytes (politicians) of those supreme sorcerers of the past who impose illusions on mankind! Only a very few, such as Rory Stewart (C16) are able to see through to a physical reality (of dirt and cleanliness, empirical traditions).

Politicians are conduits for routine, and they suppress the free-flowing grace of communal living (Harlem etc). Routines can imitate reality to a degree, but it is always too perfect, like 3D animation (prev.) The imperfect vernacular line is always a mixture of two elements; the technical knowledge (training, practice, apprenticeship), and the spontaneous flow. Together they make up expression (Bruce Lee prev.)

These two things are always completely separate, like sun and moon. This is why a solar universe is only a good illusion; it cannot be expressive of the individual in the free commune of yore (see “Indian Summer” Alternates 7, Detroit Pictorial 46, Drama3)

What is the inarticulate universe of expression? It’s the universe that animates the poetry of Man, the origin of western culture in Homer, the same universe that animates the dark prosody of Howard.

What is an articulate universe? One that’s not inchoate; that starts with perspective (of the sun) and ends with scripted routines of political acolytes of the competitive order (where there is no disorder Hyborian Bridge 64)

There is always subcultural hope for free expression. From intro to Sheryl Nome’s concert (Pictorial 52)

In the beginning was the song

Stars singing as they’re playing a beautiful tune of heaven

 

Pictorial 52

The physical universe is action; the physical rotation of Earth against the cosmos. The illusory reality we live in is a systematic order of scripted routine (monetary, numerical, DNA, algorithms). They are outside this physical universe that relates to the physique-in-action and codes-of-honour (C14/2).

The physical universe does not have verifiable proofs such as DNA (a scripted routine), but one can suppose it has psyche which emanates (see Madame Blavatsky Hyborian Bridge 10). Conscience or religion.

If you go back to the comic book example of Starlin’s Dreadstar (Hyborian Bridge 66) the universe is ordered with perspective illusion but, added to this, the flow of line expresses many things in the story. The story becomes less systematic and more expressive owing to the freedom of line.

Here’s another page, portraying rejection and possible revenge

 

This content is physical, with possible combat and codes-of-honour. Starlin also loads his stories with religious themes, as here

 

There are always two things going on; one is the technique, the other is the flow of action that expresses a combat, some dramatic tension. Without this flow there would be no actual content, physical (codes of conduct) or psyche (conscience or religion).

Expression is content to quite a high degree. A good example is Japanese anime which is drawn so has to be expressive. A quality of line, color and shape. This Sheryl Nome song from Macross Frontier is highly technical – like clockwork – and also very expressive

SHERYL NOME

Without the quality of line and song it would just be a technical exercise. I’ve always wondered how 3D animation (Pixar) can work as it’s not drawn. It’s a mystery to me as there is no expressive content, only technique.

From that respect, 3D animation fits the world we are becoming, while classical anime doesn’t. Anything that is pure technique has no physical sense of line in action, drama as in classic 50s Disney.

The physical sense of flowing action in line evokes feelings of grace. The content is romantic or atmospheric and is easy to align with physical action, combat, the fighting spirit.

This in turn relates to bloody pursuits such as hunting, and then the physical awareness of death and decay. From that comes regeneration and the lusty Dionysus.

 Rene Peron (Drama 2)

 

Without expressive linework, the content in terms of bodily action just isn’t there, and all you’re left with is illusion. 3D animation and “their” future (though I admit to never seeing any Pixar, being an anime fan).

Hyborian Bridge 66

ATHINA (15 plus minutes in tracking shot)

To quote Enter the Dragon, “The enemy has only images and illusions” (Shaolin master). The perfect illusion is one of mirrors. Too perfect. Imperfect reality is a labyrinth of twists and turns that has the perfection of vernacular charm.

Athens, thank Athena, is too poor to build over its history which is all too visible in the skyline and the low adobe walls alike. You may have heard of the Acropolis Museum built to house the Parthenon marbles within sight of the imposing monument to western civilization?

The missing marbles – Elgin – currently languishing in the British Museum are a bit of a slight. More than that, blood should flow to put them out of their subterranean misery. Melina Mercouri – then minister for culture – did her best with toothy grin flashing balefire.

MERCOURI

The missing marbles are a bit like western civilization: all image but all an illusion of perfect order missing the imperfection of vernacular perfection.

I know that sounds a bit Bruce Lee; it’s called art and life. Life is an art and not a science; the lost art of living is a quest worth following.

Following to the Parthenon, to the living sculptures originally painted in ruddy hues. That sense of the stirrings of breath was prized by the ancients as a magical trick of verisimilitude given to inanimate matter.

I’ve always felt The Enchantment one of BWS’s oddest prints as the statue sitting in the lake is the most animate object in it! Then again, perhaps it’s almost intentionally morbid? Whatever the truth of it, marble on monuments can have an eerie semblance of sensual awakening.

Parthenon Frieze 

 

A depiction of the gods Poseidon, Apollo and Aphrodite, on whose knees is perched a winged Eros. 442-438 BC (Acr. 856 and fragments Acr. 1226+. Two fragments in the BM, one fragment in Palermo)

So, Bruce Lee says reality is expression, the kind of thing one sees in Greek marbles. A mixture of fluidity of line and technique; of artistry and science. Always the two go together, just as style needs a psychic content (narrative, frieze).

On the frieze sits Apollo which, as everyone knows, was the name of NASA moonshots in the late 60s to 70s. What most people don’t recognize is that before going to the moon, Man had already gone to the sun!

What I mean is they went to the illusion of the sun, since the sun is a very illusory object. I mentioned previously the right-hand rule (Faraday Hyborian Bridge 21) of electromagnetic induction whereby current, magnetic lines and movement are all at right-angles.

Light also splits at specific angles (refraction, rainbow) and so one enters a perspective universe of mirrors – see C4 “Opticks” (under The Ram and the Peacock). This is the sun; not the energy of the sun but the universe of perspective illusions. This is the technical universe, the one of systematization and scripted routines (C14/2). In order to have systematic order, you first have to enter the technical universe, and this is what Newton did.

In order to see how essential perspective is for a systematic universe, just take a look at any comics page at random, say Starlin.

Dreadstar (unknown issue)

It’s all illusion, but what artists do is add to the technique a flow of line. The expressive universe consists of technique and the animal flow in combat (Bruce Lee). The problem with technique per se is it’s very convincing because that’s what it’s supposed to be (CC Beck Pictorial 50/2). The systematizers and the DNA-mongers cannot escape from it and it becomes a monetary/numerical compulsion (Grace Slick quote Hyborian Bridge 62/1).

Transhumanists (like Hameroff of quantum consciousness, prev) are stepping into this illusory future which is outside of the physical universe of sun and moon, planets and stars (figures in the sky); the result of Earth’s physical rotation against the cosmos. The physical universe has physical codes-of-honour and psyche (conscience or religion). Both you find in Starlin’s Dreadstar (story or psychic content).

If you want a good contemporary example, Cori Gauff at Wimbledon was it. Her physical grace is reminiscent of Borg, broad in shoulder and long-armed with gazelle-like springs. A mixture of stoic training (technique) with animal expression of line (flow) in combat (strength, fighting spirit).

The modern illusion is so perfect it seems to Have escaped notice that it is, after all, only perspective. Take that away and you have the things that really matter, like the Parthenon marbles. Grace of line that is an expression of Man’s physical reality in a psychic universe of cosmic deities (rotation of Earth).

Without that simplicity there is neither a physical nor a psychic reality. Just a very good illusion, one that “they” want us to step into, courtesy of MS hololenses, Musk’s rockets and Bezos’s smart planet.

Pictorial 51

As a footnote to Hyborian Bridge 65 I read on the stackexchange that Hegel was not fond of Newton and the empirical method.

"There is a fundamental delusion in all of scientific empiricism. It employs metaphyisical categories of matter, force,... generality, infinity, etc.; following the clue given by these categories it proceeds to draw conclusions... And all the while it is unaware that it contains metaphysics - in wielding which it makes use of those categories and their combinations in a style utterly thoughtless and uncritical (§38)... Newton gave physics an express warning to beware of metaphysics, it is true; but to his own honor, be it said, he did not obey his own warning (§98)... Physical mechanics is steeped in an unspeakable metaphysics, which, contrary to experience and the Notion, has the said mathematical determinations alone as its source (§270)." (Encyclopedia)

Empiricism was not worthy of “pure thought” and the “science of logos” (spirit). What I suggest happens is that Hegel identifies thought with the sun (ordered logic), which happens to be the perspective system of Newton’s mirrors (C5). The Enlightenment cannot escape its own sense of order and even Hegel, no fan of Newton, is a prisoner of the mirrors, which he identifies with logos or thought.

The ordered mind (thought) has no reason to deny so convincing an illusion as a mirror, and it’s only when the existentialists and expressive guys like Nietzsche came along that disorder can rule, outside of the perspective order (of the mirrors).

Enter Weird Tales and specifically the covers of Margaret Brundage, all billowing folds and frieze-like clarity.

 

It’s figurative art but with an expressive line with a charm all its own, no prisoner of any mirror nor any perspective dogma.

 

This one’s a pretty accurate depiction of Yasmina’s desperate gamble in freeing Conan from her own master’s tender clutches. Brundage draws in a very limited background and the focus is again on the lithe female line.

In the first one there is more than a hint of exposed nipples as the two females tussle. Nipples classically add luster to a picture of free-flowing female action (see Hyborian Bridge 31) and Brundage is nothing if not classical.

Clair Noto, as I probably already mentioned, has a lot in common with Weird Tales with her focus on fierce females and rites of blood in “Red Lace” (Hyborian Bridge 32)

  Red Sonja #11 (c) Marvel

Thorne must be the sword and sorcery artist least concerned with perspective and the sense of primitivism is palpable in the macabre beasts and bestial priestesses baying for blood.

I happen to have this print by Frank of Ghita with an exposed nipple.

Hyborian Bridge 65

The Hegelian dialectic of ideal spirit that animates the rational universe was a systematic attempt to eclipse Kant’s transcendental mysticism, and therefore a much purer example of Enlightenment thinking. The Enlightenment will eclipse all mysticism because it does not recognize the Earth as a power in the cosmos.

Only the sun (order) has power, and so there is no sublime symmetry (Artemis and Apollo), no dark decadence of blood and bow, no figuration of planets and stars. In a word, no physical universe that we see from the streams and fields of yore.

Hegel, in that sense, is practically the philosophical equivalent of Newton, whose perspective universe of light (C5) becomes more immaterial as time goes by. “They” will seek to convince us we live in a material universe even though it becomes clearer we are only living in a convincing routine.

Newtonian physics is bound to be convincing since reflections and refractions of light inhabit a perspective universe that is very convincing. It resembles the sorcerous mirrors of Kharam Akkad from Conan #20 (Hyborian Bridge 20)

 

The perspective universe of reflecting and refracting light is a sorcerous one that convinces the acolyte. The systematizers – most notably Hegel – exist in the immaterial world (of the head) behind the mirrors. In other words, once the Newtonian world of mirrors exists, it serves to imprison the mind of Man in logic-chopping delusion.

The delusion is that the universe is rational (sun, perspective) as opposed to predatory and bloody, rebirth following decay in an inarticulate cycle of Dionysian gaiety (Greek drama, prev.) From opposites spring strength. We who live in a world of words find it hard to imagine the poetic fancies that emanate from a low-hanging moon over crumbling ruins. The will to dance and to chant melancholy refrains emanates from the inarticulate power we see expressed.

Such opposites cannot survive the logic-chopping mirrors of Kharam Akkad since they emanate from the physical universe (of sun, moon, earth, stars, planets). This is somewhat similar to Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophy where the psyche emanates from the planets.

The bizarre state of affairs is that only those things that exist behind the mirrors are deemed real, since they are so convincing! The immaterial, electromagnetic world is deemed material, and run by acolytes (politicians) of the immaterial head.

 

Kharam Akkad’s voiceover speaks for all the acolytes. He says a mirror is truth when it is simply a convincing lie. Acolytes always confuse what is convincing for the physical truth. If Kharam Akkad’s mirrors penetrate the flesh with X-rays, there are those who would say that is truth. No, it’s a convincing lie; what you are seeing is the X-ray which deflects off the bone to give an accurate image.

Many accurate things are lies (Katie Bouman’s black hole Hyborian Bridge 56) because they exist inside a lens. In fact, the best lies are the most accurate! DNA fingerprinting is accurate in a world of scripted routine. The future of lies is robotic and not natural; to do with scripted routines (DNA, algorithms) and not action. Head and not body.

Conan’s actions shatter the death’s head mirror; and why should a mirror reflect death? Because it is not physical reality; it cannot be reborn from the fragments of decay. A universe of mirrors is living death, and this is what Conan beholds in the vast chamber “which folds reality back upon itself”. For the Tarim, as we know, is not a living man.

 

I know this can sound odd to you as dentists use X-rays routinely. Yes, but a dentist isn’t a universe! The universe is blood and decay and rebirth – the tooth itself, not the X-ray that detects it. Don’t confuse the two. One is a convincing lie (electromagnetism); the other is physical truth (tooth).

So, am I saying all photography and films are lies? No, I’m talking about accurate imaging only, like Katie Bouman’s black hole which is a very accurate and completely delusional misapprehension of fact. Films are products of the imaginative psyche, a dream landscape. Photography, well, could be getting a bit clinical I guess.

The imagination is needed to perceive something as real in the universe, or we are just robots. This goes back to Madame Blavatsky and the emanance of the psyche, the planets. Only the physical universe is real; everything else is a convincing illusion. Sorcerers’ acolytes (including dentists!) use these illusions because they are very accurate. That doesn’t make them real, it makes them useful.

If the universe were just accurate we would be robots, so this goes back to Bruce Lee. The other side of reality is flow, the primal rhythm that emanates. Combining the two expresses the fight, the fury (“natural unnatural”). It’s because our universe is convincingly accurate that it’s an illusion, an illusion that has no natural flow.

Because something is convincing, Enlightenment thinkers – and above all Hegel – systematized a rational universe (of perspective, or basically light). It took the “dark” philosophers – Schopenhauer and the ones who followed – to throw aside all the systematizers and just come up with the irrational will, being, power.

The question is, where do these come from? A good guess is they come from the physical universe that was abandoned by the Enlightenment, the stars and planets of the sky. Bruce Lee, as you know, hated all systematizers, and it’s true the philosophy of Gung Fu is very figurative (animal shapes, postures). Jeet Kune Do harks back to Tao and the chaotic expression of the Chinese dragon.

This expression is the power (ontology) of the physical universe which the Enlightenment abandoned. The logic-chopping Enlightenment philosophers cannot be said to live in a physical universe, and it’s not till Schopenhauer that western thought starts to match much more closely with the ancient Eastern truths of power and simplicity, grace and flow.

A lot of this is encapsulated in Jeet Kune Do, which to Lee was an attempt to do without all systems. In a way it’s quite modern since the body is fuelled and kept flexible by stress training. The aim of a fight is to flow and not be restricted by set moves.

It’s very clear from various interviews, though, that these moves are ingrained by training. The set moves are the robotic side to the training; the flow is the natural side. The two come together in the fight (action).

A fight is expression and, to Lee, that is reality. That idea is close to post-Schopenhauer philosophy, as well as close to ancient Chinese. The fight explodes all formulations and systems via the action.

Expression is the inarticulate universe that has poetic grace. So, this is really back to Howard and the explosive poetry of action. Poetry is the ability to give words to inarticulate things, to gloom and gaiety in a world of grimness and charm.

It’s not far from fairy tale, something that Clair Noto added to the Hyborian mythos (see “Red Lace”). In her version, the Hyborian story is expressed through body of Man, animal and plant, blood and desire.

Hyborian Bridge 64

JUST FOR LOVE PART 1

The nonchalant manner of a high flying bird is a token of freedom in the physical world. The free-flowing fiddling of Orkney revellers. Off-duty cowboys dancing.

 

Denizens of the Netherworld 3

The physical act that is not a physical routine. What I would call freedom is the old rustic culture of milkmaidens toiling and the dirt-encrusted haylofts where Cider is with Rosie (Laurie Lee). Without the physical freedom of toiling in the fields of plenty, we are being fed a routine whatever “they” call it.

In the competitive order, there is no disorder, no dirt and no laissez-faire rustic activities that express sexuality (see Fulling Hyborian Bridge 60) Politicians are conduits for routine and that is the reason there can be no freedom. “They” say it’s a freedom, but is routine a freedom? Or the opposite? Freedom is more like the hippy communes that went topless a la Kantner’s Blows.

You know the clip from The Big Boss with Lee at a chicken-run brothel? That is freedom because it is has a rundown, frivolous aspect. That rundown or laissez-faire abandon is the inarticulate nature of the universe.

The gloomy aspect of The Big Boss is in the inarticulate sense of abandon. The universe is inarticulate and that is poetry. These opposites cannot occur in a world fooled by sorcerous routines of (political) conduits for the ritual language of shadows (dead sorcerers). One can only rightfully think in an inarticulate universe, the universe of Dionysian will and Apollonian vision, dream. That universe has no convincing routine, it has direct expression.

This is precisely what Lee’s philosophy is about and is articulated in his films – often inarticulately! Those who seek routine achieve a ritual language of shades; the world of decay without the inarticulate abandon of rebirth. The convincing routines of a scripted reality. A living death without the inarticulate, the Dionysian urge of gay abandon in a world reborn – groves of yore.

 

What we seem to have in lieu of this is pornography, but is that freedom or the opposite, a routine? I’ll leave that to you (see Lost Girls). The primitive grace of Lee’s films, their Kurasawan line, their sordidity, their crudeness strike at all that is shallow and without fabric in western civilization. Namely, that we live one big routine without once seeing through the words to the inarticulate truth of expression.

As I’ve been attempting to elucidate, expression is the simple and powerful – the rotation of Earth – as opposed to the complex and meaningless (see Hyborian Bridge 56, 62/1)

The expressive world of physical grace is the one you see in Lee’s films (a hazy crescent through the bush). From the inarticulate comes power, the Dionysian will to dance. From this same world comes Howard’s poetry. The dance of Earth through the cosmos is strong and simple, and from this comes empirical tradition and the basic maze of the labyrinth – 4 sided symmetrical, of Paleolithic vintage.

 

Is a labyrinth ordered or free? It could be both, if you liken it to a cosmic serpent which can either be solar (order) or more associated with the Earth (lunar). In Denizens of the Underworld 3 I must have been associating the maze with a solar serpent, but the other association is equally relevant, and then it is a labyrinth of meandering freedom or free-expression (somewhat like a Chinese dragon.)

A labyrinth, because it isn’t straight-line, can be a type of freedom from rote, free to become enmeshed in wooded by-ways or hutongs of free-trading ports in bygone days. There is always some inarticulate sense of night-ways that are ragged and of low esteem. One glimpses the moon through low arches.

This is equally the world of Howard; terrestrial and gloomy but also heaving and boiling with freemen and women of sundry trades and surly or wanton manner. The terrestrial freedom is maze-like, inarticulate and could be likened to empirical tradition (dirt and cleanliness).

The solar order, on the other hand, is pure scripted routine, but I suppose you could say there is still a maze-like confusion about it all. The pathological hygiene that builds our infrastructure of straight lines and no disorder, a world of decay but no rebirth, because rebirth comes from the inarticulate power of earth spinning against the cosmos. It is simple and primitive and an expression of destiny. Of shape, primeval and figurative – the physical universe of the ancients where figures are imagined amongst constellations.

This universe of physique (meaning) and power (ontology) has a primitive poetry that I’ve already likened to Weird Tales (C15) Man is attached to the stars as Earth spins in space; the human expression of a heroic destiny.

This universe cannot be articulated by pure routine because it is composed of physique (meaning) and power (ontology). The figures of the stars are imagined to be there (constellations) because the physical universe doesn’t rely on verifiable proof. Where there is rhythm and shape Man sees figures.

Celestial movements, the Homeric rise and fall of moon and sun over seas of green. Folk poerty that is simple and cosmic in a disordered universe of free expression. Folk relates youth to the cosmos just as Howard’s mother related the ancient folk tales, and Weird Tales the folk fairy spirit of the 30s.

A folk spirit, a revival, the unknown wonderer of youth are expressions of the inarticulate, the figurative, cosmic, powerful. Meaning (epistemology) and ontology (being), both ignored by acolytes of a parallel universe of the immaterial (Hyborian Bridge 56)

The more they persuade themselves that this universe of the head is material, the more fantastically delusional are the routines we will be obliged to follow, courtesy of Bezos, Musk and others of their order.

 

 

Hyborian Bridge 63

THE BIG BOSS

The gloominess of Bruce Lee’s first film is in its atmospherically-lit chicken runs and primitive bushland setting in Thailand.

This is the film that launched a thousand kicks, and the wild war cries and quick kicks have never been better. The point was made that the Honk Kong audience of the time was uneducated and unsophisticated enough to appreciate the guileless hero as one of their own against their former masters.

If only Lee were still around he could do the same to the new boss, China. The neverending speech of the political class could do with a good kicking. Lee’s chaotic choreography would look even better by splicing Xi and Co’s heads into the frame – yiyiyi – wak!

Xi is just the purest example of authoritarian Asians, much more far gone than the bureaucratic Afghanistan encountered by Rory Stewart. One example was that Afghan villagers bathed in their courtyards where mud would get in the new sewage pipes. Mud, of course, is water and minerals so is much more healthy than pure hygiene. Tradition doesn’t fit with modernism, so way is that? Partly it’s that native societies aren’t ordered or hygienic, but it goes further (and further back.)

Native societies have empirical tradition; this is experience gained from living on Earth over centuries that is tabulated into rules (the empirical tradition of Mosaic Law for example (Tales of Faith 10) Modern societies have a high tendency to replace empirical tradition with the scientific version: empirical reason, dating from The New Atlantis (Pictorial 19) It’s not just the bureaucracy but the entire western system of scientific reason dating from Frances Bacon.

China, ironically, is the worst example of this, as it is a system of replacing dirt with hygiene. This goes by the name of infrastructure, be it railways, roads, dams, towns, sewage, wifi. Dirt is simply the earth, believe it or not, be it mud on river-banks, black loam for growing crops, the landscape of wooded hills and rickety bridges over sludgy streams. A typical scene of a hill tribe from Conan the Conqueror, say.

With dirt comes the moral duty of cleanliness (this goes back to Mosaic Law and places of power). So, where modern society has hygiene, tradition society has dirt and cleanliness which is both rugged and healthy and more in concert with animals that live in nature.

The traditional societies live much closer with nature, all the customs of bathing and rugged clothing; in other words, it is physically in contact with nature. Through this means it gains empirical knowledge of the surroundings. So empirical tradition really depends on the closeness to nature or it ceases to exist. Streams, moccasins, hides (also Fulling Hyborian Bridge 60)

A very good example is the ancient irrigation system of the Andes. I just read of this on pre-Inca canals and ponds found to feed aquafers from the hills that flow to habitually dry Lima in Peru

  (29 July) Closer to home, this letter appeared in DT. The gamekeeper is brought-up with empirical tradition and it is the entire mode and code of conduct (The House of Elrig Pictorial 42, 43). Why is the Scottish government not bothered by the Highlands? Because they don’t value empirical tradition which lives with Mother Earth, killing and skinning, providing carrion for crows, blood and the everlasting cycle (skraaaaw!)

The Acropolis, the hill to ancient Athenian monuments, has been hit by erosion, and wdider Athenian areas by forest fires and floods. What’s the connection? If you think about it, the canals meandering the contours of the Andes, scrub of the rolling grouseland, crows cawing high and alighting on firs sweeping down a rugged slope.. add the Afghan villagers’ courtyards and you have a merging ofr the artefacts of Man with rugged nature (see Rome Hyborian Bridge 2).

Man’s monuments in such settings have “thingness” (Heidegger “being”)

 

Cawdor Castle and gardens (old postcard)

What I tend to think is the less ordered and planned things are, the more likely that have thingness (see art deco skyscrapers Americana) Thingness is a type of freedom from ordered planning, and it’s true you see it where they still have art deco; but the rule is order, where there can be no freedom. Not only that, a competitive order has no disorder, be it decay or dirt or mud (prev.) And yet, creation of disorder is just part of the great cycle of rebirth (Dionysus, rustic revelry), the fertile crescent, the main religions of the Middle East, Egypt, Mesopotamia (Babylonia, Assyria), Israel.

The entire cycle of creation and destruction (rebirth) is outside of the scripted routine of competitive order. In this respect, it is a sorcerous system run by acolytes of dead sorcerers.

BLACK HORSE AND THE CHERRY TREE

was the 3^rd significant moment in British pop (after Beatles on Ed Sullivan andWuthering Heights on Top of the Pops, natch). I’m including this here because the sheer precision of all her acts invites comparison with Bruce Lee.

Tunstall had 24 hours to prepare and, beforehand ten years of hard grind around clubs in Edinburgh and elsewhere. Her Lee-like whoops are set up with a loop-pedal and the rhythm driven with some effective and straight-forward strumming.

Along the way, she picks-up a tambourine and loops a raspberry. It reminded me of Lee’s chaotic choreography where everything is very well prepared and then happens with nary a thought. In other words, the routines that are learnt become second nature and flow with pure grace (Liza Minnelli has that ability). Lee elucidated that philosophy in Artist of Life and it’s worth going into it somewhat.

Lee is to some extent against the western rational tradition (having studied western philosophy at UC). The entire notion that reality can be described in words amounts to a script, as opposed to being felt. This limitation of rationalism was exploited by Heidegger, Schopenhauer and of course Nietzsche (Thus Sprach Zarathustra), the latter emphasizing dance and will.

To Lee, there are always two things going on, and they are completely separate (The Big Pretence) One is the routines and techniques of fighting that are methodically learnt. The other is the act (art) of fighting, which is pure and spontaneous. You don’t fight with a routine; you fight with dance, will, power (watch Tunstall).

The entire principle of routine is anathema to Lee as it means you are not in the moment. One must be flexible in the moment and that means pure will, dance, power. This philosophy (Jeet Kune Do) amounts to a critique of western civilization with its complex routines that rely on scipt (not just politics but DNA, algorithms). And it is quite close to the ancient Chinese philosophy of Tao, chaotic expression (dragon), which was alongside Confucianism, or communal solidarity.

In the film, Lee’s character (as in most of his films) is a guileless peasant, and some of the fights have an almost cartoon simplicity. In one scene a guy is punched though a wooden shack, and the next shot shows a cutout figure outlined in the wood!

Lee is gestural, not verbal, and is apt to be crude. The toilet gag I mentioned (Combination of the Two 18) appears near the start of Way of the Dragon; the third film and his first as director. The physical crudity and lack of verbal pomposity is really a challenge to western civilization, and quite close to Howard’s own, expressed through archaic heroes.

If western civilization, as I tend to think, has become merely a scripted routine (of the head) both Lee and Howard are physically opposed. Some other artists such as Marley and KT Tunstall I get the same feeling (incidentally, Ed Sheeran is pure routine unlike KT’s nonchalant manner!)

Why has it happened? Because the ethos of America – which is cowboys and Indians – has been rejected. The carefree, vagabondish free-living on the range of dirt and cleanliness has given way to hygiene-machines and vast lots (Drama3)

All these things are scripted routines, run by satellites run by Branson, Bezos, Musk and other acolytes of the “smart” planet, as opposed to the physical reality of man, woman, horse, Apache and settlement on the plains under the sky above. Yeehaw!

I met my first love in Vermont, who grew up in a commune. I spent the summer there and it was the opposite end of the spectrum. I loved bathing in the lake. I was really drawn to that lack of need of things. KT Tunstall

Combination of the Two (20)

COULD YOU BE LOVED

Marley in the lyric here has the line

Don't let them fool ya
Or even try to school ya
Oh, no
We've got a mind of our own

Moderns are predisposed to believe they are being educated into truth, but what if the reverse is the truth? In other words, that the convincing reality we live in is a sorcerous illusion!

Going by various things – such as “Another Tone Productions” (First Thing in the Morning Kiki Dee prev), Rory Stewart’s seeming perplexity in the mismatch of tradition to modern, the Woodstock era of bodies-in-motion against the prevailing norms – that notion isn’t new.

The real problem is if something is very convincing, how do you disprove it? How not to be a crank? As for the latter, if sorcery was running things, acolytes would automatically use the trick to maintain the status quo.

The side of reality which is convincing is bright and shiny and associated with ordered social life. The side of reality which is associated with decay and rebirth is dark and gloomy and disordered, so it makes good sense that an illusion of social order can be mistaken for reality.

With decay and disorder come the gaiety of rebirth (Dionysus), so that too much social order is a denial of the rustic god (the theme of Euripides’ The Bacchae The False Apollo). So, a reality that is convincingly ordered is not associated with rebirth. As Cindy Sherman’s photographic stills show, it does resemble a perspective illusion.

This goes back to the mirrors of Karam Akkad (Hyborian Bridge 20). They are confusingly, reflectively real but not the actual reality of primeval shape on Earth.

 Yag-Kosha, Conan #4

While the competitive order of modern reality is a scripted routine (DNA, algorithms), the physical reality is primeval shape. This is the universe which weaves between pleasure (desirability) and reason; the universe of the dangerous serpent and of Weird Tales (Pictorial 1)

The serpent is a priori, a cosmic interweaving of sun and moon, the physical universe of motion  -rotation of earth, natch, against the cosmos. Show me a motion, a poetry of cosmic power, a poetic dance of destiny. Obviously there is no verifiable proof of this archaic predatory serpent; like Claude Levi-Strauss it is a useful myth.

Behind the mirrors of Karam Akkad is the perspective illusion of order, the invisible world we see through lenses (“Pets” Hyborian Bridge 56) Whereas the physical world has primeval rhythm – sun and moon – the perspective world has scripted routine, such as DNA. In other words, the invisible world we see through lenses is the world of order, not primeval rhythm. Reason being, that’s what perspective is: a type of order (C5)

Rhythm and archaic symmetry are what an elephant has, not order

 

The physique in action in a landscape of dirt and disorder, triumph and rebewal. As archaic as Hyboria.

The universe we live in is a sorcerous parallel to this physically desirable one of shape. Now, of course, you’re gonna say if you look through a microscope (lens) at something small, you do see shape!

Yes, all molecules have shapes, but I’m talking about the primeval symmetry of the cosmos which produces archaic shapes like an elephant. Shapes that are Earthbound, and Earth is placed midway between sun and moon (Midgard). They are cosmically attuned to the destiny of Earth twirling in space.

Physiques have cosmic meaning in a physical universe of sun and moon, planets and stars, not in the parallel reality of perspective (sun). The real problem is any parallel universe of order is very convincing, whereas the real universe of myth (shape and power) has no verifiable proof.

One way to look at it is the universe of order is bright and shiny and for the living, but what is our destiny? Since it’s to die, what does that imply? It would imply decay, so unless you are a believer in rebirth and a cosmic cycle, the modern order has no great appeal!

Destiny is gloomy and disordered, at trek with Orpheus, but at least it’s not nothing. The real problem with order is “they” have to tell you to compete and so forth, but why is it so good not to have a destiny?

Destiny is strength, the strength of the predator, the strength of the cycle of creation and destruction, of dirt and cleanliness. Destiny is gloomy, a forest stillness, leaves crackling underfoot but it is not nothing.

This is the enduring appeal of Weird Tales and Howard. They do not blanch at the destiny of Man but face it squarely. We live in an age of weakness and order (of politicians) when the stars are our destiny.

 

The Tower of the Elephant