Combination of the Two (19)

What “they” are selling us is simply physical boredom. We are entering an alternate reality that is not physical, and so we are trapped by our own physique, which cannot be denied.

A physical reality is primitive, unthinking. There is the chase, communal gaiety, feasting. Such is the case in action dramas of the South China Seas. Al Couteli’s La Dame De Singapour (Tales of Faith 2) has its antecedents in perhaps the original and greatest of them all, Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates.

Largely what is lacking in the modern scene is ambiance, since it is simply something that is left to its own devices to have spontaneity. This was largely the attraction of San Francisco’s dance-hall culture, going by the memoirs of Kantner and Slick (Hyborian Bridge 62/2)

Something that is left is free to be what it wants to be; it’s kind of a proto-rebellion that is always present in something that has physical roots. By roots one could just mean farming, as was the case with Shanghai (Tales of Faith 2). It’s also present in ancient Chinese philosophy of Tao and Confucianism, Tao by the unthinking gaiety, Confucianism by the communal solidarity.

This philosophy permeates Hong Kong kung fu films, which are quite often a defence of territory, as in Fists of Fury. The unthinking joy of battle almost goes over the top in Jackie Chan’s gay rooftop romps. There is an animal aspect to the fights that is exotic and primitive. The unthinking aspect of life is when it is left to itself with no plan of Man.

The fight could therefore be said to represent decay and disorder as a principle in the universe. Without decay there can be no triumph or eventual revival of fortune. Life and death are ever-present forces in the natural cycle.

This Hong Kong fairy tale of aerial battles is therefore much more true to physical reality than the pedantically verbose western dramas! This was brought home to me by a 2013 interview with Rory Stewart by America’s own Harry Kleister. Stewart is a son of Empire who was born in Hong Kong of ancient Scots blood.

His fairly famous walk across Asia he describes in terms of physical reality, staying in about 500 villages en route. The sense I got was that a traditional society is disordered, while a modern society is ordered.

Or, as I tend to say here, one is physique, the other is head. The physique expresses itlelf in everyday acts. For example, he mentions that Afghan villagers were opposed to a bureaucratic plan to lay a pipeline infrastructure because they washed in their courtyards where mud would get in the pipes.

Bureaucrats see the infrastructure as order (of the head), whereas the physical expression of the body in traditional societies is usually disordered, exposed to dirt or mud. The physique is associated with both dirt and cleanliness and, likewise, with the creation of dirt and the destruction of dirt (by washing and toiletries).

In terms of physique, this is glaringly obvious and animal-like. But in terms of bureaucratic self-justification – which only deals in hygiene – it doesn’t really exist! Stewart put his experiences – as both wanderer and government official – in different but similar terms. What he didn’t say but what I’m saying here is that a society of the head cannot physically experience creation and destruction (in their daily activities.)

The villages used pack animal where this cycle is continually occurring and the landscape they travelled through was ruggedly dirt-ridden – maybe like the Old West. The experience of the physical destruction of dirt is no longer part of the modern lexicon (apart from odd tourist attractions, natch.)

A society of the physique has this literally at their doorstep. It is not hygiene, it is dirt where cleanliness is a moral duty (Mosaic Law Tales of Faith 10). I did mention somewhere that microbes in dirt reinforce our immune-defences, most likely because it is a natural cycle we as homo sapiens have historically lived in (Pictorial 34, Hyborian Bridge 31, 36)

In a society of courtyard bathing, mud and dirt, decay is in the air but so by the same token is bodily strength and cleanliness. The black loam that fertilized Man’s crops is born of decay and the strength of this cycle is the physical strength of Earth. A traditional society of the physique is of earth, while a modern society of the head is not. This could be why it often appears the Martians are here!

Stewart seemed genuinely perplexed, and one problem is that a society of the head is very convincing. I happened to spot a feature on “selfie” pioneer Cindy Sherman, and it struck me that photographic perspective makes it very easy to lie since what is in the frame is so convincing.

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In other words, what is ordered (sun or perspective) can easily be an illusion, a copy, mirror image or reflection. Artists like BWS who make use of perspective in a basically disordered world are much more true to reality; the reality of disorder or the cycle of lifedeath. A classical reality is unthinking, it is not of the head. Often what is depicted is a fight, or the everlasting hunt, Diana in physical action, coupling, martyrdom.

Going back to Hong Kong films, the creative action of bodies-in-motion is quite animalistic. The hutongs and chic hotel interiors offer an odd comparison to Nyoka (Drama1) with the frenetic clambering over balconies and protrusions.

If, as Bruce Lee said, kung fu is a battle between a wild beast and a robot, the battle is never won. For the same reason, Helene of Rome (Tros of Samothrace Hyborian Bridge 18) is thigh-slapping fury personified. The savage grace of Howard’s prose is born of the wildness and freedom that is the human physique in action in a landscape of dirt and disorder, triumph and rebirth.