Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, Pataphysics and Alfred Jarry

“Joan was quizzical studied pataphysical

                                               Science in the home

                                               Late night all alone with a test tube,

                                               Oh oh, oh oh…………………”

Pataphysics is a French absurdist concept. It is a pseudo philosophy that pretended to probe beyond metaphysics. The Beatles mentioned the word “pataphysical” in their 1969 song “Maxwell Silver Hammer” from Abbey Road.   Pataphysics as Alfred Jarry defined it was a science of imaginary solutions, mixing science, science fiction, technology and art.

Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne. At the age of 15 he had written Ubu Roi in collaboration with a classmate at the Lycee de Rennes to ridicule a pompous mathematics teacher. The coarseness of the language and anarchistic tones shocked even W.B. Yeats who attended its opening night on December 10, 1896 at the theatre de L’Oeuvre.

Jarry quickly drifted into a chaotic bohemian life. “We won’t have destroyed anything unless we destroy the ruins too”, was his program. He was a midget, had a taste for absinthe and lived in a bizarre apartment. Gide wrote of him: “his face was dusted with flour, he had a mechanical speech without intonation, the syllables were even spaced and his words were made up or distorted”. He even spoke in a high falsetto. Jarry died of alcoholism and tuberculosis at age 34 in Paris. He was a predecessor of the theater of the absurd and his writings had a profound influence on the Surrealist and Dada movements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTNIqJE80nQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTNIqJE80nQ

A Century of Movie Posters

Shilimaqshtush: a coastal Indian Hamlet

No one knew exactly how old the small fishing hamlet of Shilimaqshtush was when Spanish Conquistador Portolá arrived in 1769. A story says that one of the natives “stole” one of the Spaniards swords and ran into the surf. Because of this they named it “Ranchería de la Espada”. The Chumash natives had settled in this region 13,000 years ago and the actual village of Xalam (meaning bundle) was located 8 miles inland near Jualachichi summit (from Xalash’ich meaning scarred). This was a gathering place where they bundled up things for trade.

I walked through the riparian rest along the creek and identified the marsh wren by its fluttering call and the killdeer, pretending it had a broken wing to lure predators. With the help of an old botanical guide and a magnifier I think I identified the Elderberry (Sambucus Mexicana) with which the natives made hunting bows, musical instruments and containers for tobacco. I also found the Giant Nettle (Urtica Dioica subsp. Holdsericea) from which they used the fibers for making fishing lines, nets and dance regalia. What I really wanted to find and explore were the mysterious cave paintings, but the path leading to them was securely fenced.

Then I hiked towards the north a bit, looking for the sea cliffs which I found shortly after. These are sedimentary rocks called shales. They are made of fine silt and mud that sank over12 million years ago and that is part of the group called the Monterrey Formation. It was from this type of rock that the natives made chipped stone tools and flaked knives for trade.   Walking back was kind of an ordeal as 15 m.p.h winds blew sand all over me. I kept stepping on chunks of tar. There’s lots of tar on the beach. It occurs naturally here and the natives used it to caulk their canoes called Tomols and to coat their water bottles made of California Bulrush (Scirpus Californicus).

It was almost dark now, but I could still distinguish the mighty Tranquillon Mountain in the distance, beyond the Santa Ines Mountains. Today this place is called Jalama.

 

Mount Tranquillon

 

Tarantulas

 

Towards the caves

 

The rivermouth

Meta Man

Neftalí Ricardo Reyes, better known as Pablo Neruda, was a master of the metaphorical magic of language. He was born in Parral, Chile in 1904. When he turned 20 years old he published “Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Canción Desesperada” (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair). This is a collection of romantic poems that firmly established him as a poet. He also wrote surrealist poems, political manifestos and an autobiography. He joined the Communist Party and represented his country as a diplomat. Neruda won the Nobel Prize in 1971 and died in 1973 at the age of 69.

Here are two of his poems from “Twenty Love Poems” that I dared to translate:

 I remember how you were

I remember how you were the last autumn.

You were the grey beret and the peaceful heart.

The flames of dusk fought in your eyes

And the leaves fell in the waters of your soul.

Embraced around my arms like a twining vine

The leaves picked up your peaceful and slow voice

Bonfire of a trance in which my being burned.

Sweet hyacinth twisted over my soul.

I feel your eyes travel and autumn is distant:

grey beret, bird’s voice and heart of a house

where my deep yearnings migrated

and my happy kisses fell like embers.

Sky from a ship. Field from the hills:

Your remembrance is a light.... smoke....a still pond!

Beyond your eyes the twilights burned

Dry leaves of autumn twirled in your soul.

Ah Vastness of Pines

Ah vastness of pines, rumor of breaking waves,

Slow play of lights, solitary bell,

Twilight falling over your eyes, doll

Terrestrial snail, in you the earth sings!

In you the rivers sing and my soul escapes in them

As you wish and wherever you want.

Signal my path in your bow of hope

And I will release in frenzy, my flock of arrows.

Around me I am looking at your waist of fog

And your silence besieges my persecuted hours

And it is you with your arms of transparent stone

Where my kisses anchor and my moist anxiety nests.

  

Ah your mysterious voice, that love dyes and folds

In the dying and resonant evening!

Like that, in deep hours over the fields, I have seen

The tassels bend in the mouth of the wind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfLLWlvWWuE%20

The Well Tempered Klavier

The arrangement of notes on today’s piano was once regarded as a crime against God. The ancient Greeks saw the relationship between the notes of the musical scale as a key to the nature of the heavens. This was referred to as the Music of the Spheres. They regarded music in terms of mathematical relationships that they called ratios. The standard Pythagorean tuning was based on perfect fifths, a ratio of two to three. As western music evolved, the early keyboards were tuned to consistently produce sounds corresponding to one single formula. When combining certain tones the sound would be ragged. In medieval times, musicians started to temper or alter the tunings differently than the old ways. But this was a problem because the fifth was tempered or impure which was an abomination for the ecclesiastical establishment of the time.  The penalty was torture and death at the stake. Tempering the tuning allows a musical pattern to be duplicated and this produces a relationship between tones that is uniform and consistent. The modern tuning system is known as equal temperament and it has produced some of the most magnificent and breathtaking music ever written. Here is a sample:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufeb1sv3vRc

Composer: Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin
Composition: Prelude No 16 in B Flat minor, Opus 28 
Pianist: Brian Ganz

 Actor: Michael C. Montero

Audio Visuals: Samuel G. Montero

"Maravilla"

Sergio “Maravilla” Martinez is a 35 year old boxing champ from Quilmes, Argentina.

 In April 2010 he outclassed Kelly “The Ghost” Pavlik and won the middleweight championship of the world. Then he was to face Paul “The Punisher” Williams who had previously defeated him in a controversial decision in December 2009.

The much anticipated clash took place in Atlantic City, New Jersey on November 20, 2010. Williams, billed as “the most avoided fighter in the world”, didn’t waste time and opened up the stanza by firing hard overhand hooks. But it was this whirlwind offense that set him up for the counter that Martinez had prepared for. At 30 seconds of the second round Williams chased Martinez attempting to land a hook but instead he walked directly into a devastatingly vicious    left hook that landed squarely on the “Punisher’s” chin. Williams fell with a blank look in his eyes and “Maravilla’s” one punch knockout was dubbed the most impressive performance of the year.

Now, with a record of 46-2-2 with 25 KO’s “Maravilla” has been declared “Fighter of the Year” by Ring Magazine and will be presented with the Sugar Ray Robinson trophy on May 6 in Las Vegas. His next foe will be the Ukrainian Sergei Dzindziruk. The bout will take place at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket in Connecticut on March 12, 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSgNDsnA7lc
Composer: Compay Segundo
Composition: Chan Chan
Performers: Buena Vista Social Club
Audio Visuals: Samuel G. Montero

The Sleeping Dragon

 

I first became acquainted with the Chinese culture as I grew up in my native Peru. My earliest memories recall an old Chinese gardener pulling the weeds in my mom’s garden. And then there was the ubiquitous “Chino”, the little corner store, owned by Chinese folk, where the whole family lived and sold essential foodstuffs, sweets and cheap toys.

In my adolescence I discovered the “Chifa", that delicious and unique blend of Chinese and Peruvian cuisine. Other than those humble early acquaintances I basically knew that China was a huge, far away country with an astronomic population, an inscrutable language and a mysterious reputation.

In the U.S I saw the Chinese mostly concentrated in their own “Chinatowns”, like in San Francisco. I never thought I would one day visit China. But the opportunity materialized when my son attended Tsinghua University in Beijing to study Mandarin.

It was in this extraordinary land that the first emperor Shih Huang-Ti ordered the erection of the great wall and the burning of all books because he wanted history to begin with him. It was this culture that first gave us silk, the folding umbrella, lacquer, toilet paper, playing cards, gunpowder, porcelain, printing, the abacus, the compass and gunpowder.

My two week Beijing experience included the following historical sites: The Great Wall, Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum, The Bell Tower, The Forbidden City, The Gate of Heavenly Peace, Tian An Men Square, The Hutongs of Chong wen men, The Summer Palace, The Lama Temple and the Imperial College.

 

Bicycle madness

                                  

Traffic madness

 

Marching Dragons

 

The Qilin

 

The Sage

 

The Drum Tower

 

Scorpion shishkabobs

 

Beijing cityscape from the Summer Palace