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Serpent logics: the marathon

Sunday, November 24th, 2013

[ by Charles Cameron — oh, the sheer delightful drudgery of finding patterns everywhere ]
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I’ll start this post, as I did the previous one to which this is a sort of appendix, with a (deeply strange, tell me about it) example of the…

Matrioshka pattern:


That’s a piece of jewelry made out of disembodied pieces of Barbies from the extraordinary designer’s mind of Margaux Lange, FWIW.

**

This post is the hard core follow up to my earlier piece today, Serpent logics: a ramble, and offers you the chance to laugh and groan your way through all the other “patterns” I’ve been collecting over the last few months. My hope is that repeated (over)exposure to these patterns will make the same patterns leap out at you when you encounter them in “real life”.

Most of the examples you run across may prove humorous — but if you’re monitoring news feeds for serious matters, my hunch is that you’ll find some of them helpful in grasping “big pictures” or gestalts, noting analomalies and seeing parallels you might otherwise have missed.

Have at it!

**

Here’s another Matrioshka, from the structural end of lit crit that my friend Wm. Benzon attacks with gusto over at New Savannah:

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Enantiodromia:

You’ll recall this is the pattern where something turns into its opposite… as described in this quote from the movie Prozac Nation:

I dream about all the things I wish I’d said.
The opposite of what came out of my mouth.
I wish I’d said
“Please forgive me. Please help me.
I know I have no right to behave this way?”

Here are a few examples…

Ahmed Akkari Repents Violent Opposition to Danish Cartoons Lampooning Islam:

After a Danish newspaper published cartoons satirizing the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, Ahmed Akkari spearheaded protests that ultimately cost the lives of 200 people. Now he says he’s sorry. Michael Moynihan on what changed Akkari’s mind.

That’s impressive!

That one’s run of the media mill…

And this one’s from my delightful, delicious boss, Danielle LaPorte:

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A friend sent me this:

**

Let’s just plough ahead…

Nominalism:

Nominalism is the category where the distinction between a word and what it represents gets blurry — a very significant distinction in some cases —

How’s this for naming your donkey after your President?

Consider this one, another instance of nominalism in action, from the French justice system:

A mother who sent her three-year-old son Jihad to school wearing a sweater with the words “I am a bomb” on the front, along with his name and ‘Born on September 11th’ on the back, was handed a suspended jail sentence on Friday for “glorifying a crime”. A court of appeal in the city of Nimes, southern France, convicted Jihad’s mother Bouchra Bagour and his uncle Zeyad for “glorifying a crime” in relation to the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11th 2001.

The classic nominalist image — with which I’d compare and contrast the French three-year-old with the unfortunate name and tsee-shirt — is Magritte’s cdelebrated “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”:

And here’s one final nominalist example:

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The spiral:

Here’s a potential downwards spiral, for those watching India:

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Straight parallelism:

This one’s from Jonathan Franzen:

And meanwhile the overheating of the atmosphere, meanwhile the calamitous overuse of antibiotics by agribusiness, meanwhile the widespread tinkering with cell nucleii, which may well prove to be as disastrous as tinkering with atomic nucleii. And, yes, the thermonuclear warheads are still in their silos and subs.

**

Simple Opposition:

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Some of these categories seem pretty fluid — or to put that another way, some of these examples might fit with equal ease into several doifferent categories. Here’s another oppositional class:

Arms crossed:

From Ezra Klein and Evan Solta blogging at WaPo’s Wonkbook: The Republican Party’s problem, in two sentences:

It would be a disaster for the party to shut down the government over Obamacare. But it’s good for every individual Republican politician to support shutting down the government over Obamacare.

A great “values” juxtaposition:

And hey, nice phrasing:

**

Here’s an example of one of the central patterns of violence and justice:

Tit for Tat:

[ the account this tweet came from, which was a media outlet for Shabaab, has since been closed — hence the less than euqal graphical appearance of this particular tweet… ]

**

And here, without too much further ado, is a whole concatenation of…

Serpents biting their tails:

[ … and that last one of Nein‘s appears to have been withdrawn from circulation ]

This one I love for its lesson on biblical pick-and-choose:

This one is also a DoubleQuote:

when closely followed by:

And this one really bites:

**

To close the series out with more of a bang than a whimper, here’s Serpent bites Tail with apocalypse & gameplay for additional spice:

Posted in art, Charles Cameron, Cyberwar, Doublequotes, education, egypt, europe, france, games, India, Islam, language, literature, media, movies, nairobi, new york times, obama, republican party, scriptures, shabaab, Specs, state department, Taliban, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Serpent logics: the marathon

On China vs India — and the Hungry Ghosts

Tuesday, August 27th, 2013

[ by Charles Cameron — I’d have put these two “quotes” in my DoubleQuotes format, but wanted to quote quite a gobbit of each, and the print would have been too small ]
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Offering us a fresh angle on two great nations as we (maybe) pivot to Asia…

Excerpted from Hungry Ghost Festival 2013 Begins In China As Spirits Descend On Homes, Wander Streets:

The gates of hell have opened. Its ghosts have been let loose to roam on earth and visit the homes of their relatives.

According to traditional Chinese beliefs this happens every year during the seventh month of the lunar year, resulting in a raucous, feast-and-music filled celebration known as the Hungry Ghost Festival. But not all ghosts are good. There are some spirits who wander the streets, ravenous and envious because they died without descendants or were ignored by their kin while alive.

To appease the hungry spirits, ethnic Chinese step up prayers, aided by giant colorful joss sticks shaped like dragons. They also burn mock currency and miniature paper television sets, mobile phones and furniture as offering to the ancestors for their use in the other world.

For 15 days, neighborhoods hold nightly shows of shrill Chinese operas and pop concerts to entertain the dead.

Excerpted from Indian state outlaws profiting on miracles, summoning ‘ghosts’:

New Delhi – A new law against superstition and black magic in India’s Maharashtra state has triggered a debate between religious groups who say that the state is interfering in personal faith, and rationalists who say religious malpractices violate human rights. [ … ]

“We will challenge the law as it is ambiguous and interferes with personal faith,” says Abhay Vartak of the Santan Sanstha, a Hindu organization. “The law does not define much of what it outlaws – ghosts, for instance. The government itself is not clear whether ghosts exist! And if belief in ghosts is to be outlawed, then what about the Hindu Scripture the Atharva Veda, which says a lot about how to get rid of ghosts who come to inhabit a body?” he asks.

The law specifically outlaws 12 practices, making them punishable by a jail term of seven months to seven years. Of the 12 clauses, two relate to belief in ghosts. The first one forbids recommending violent and sexual practices for purging ghosts from the body – including drinking urine or stool, being tied with a rope or chain, and touching heated objects. It also outlaws creating fear by threatening to invite ghosts.

**

For a glimpse of how the notion of “hungry ghosts” might be interpreted in terms of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy — as embodied in the Chöd rite — see Tai Situ Rinpoche‘s Introduction to Chod.

Posted in 21st century, Buddhist, Charles Cameron, china, India, Religion, strategy, tibet, Uncategorized | Comments Off on On China vs India — and the Hungry Ghosts

Blessed are the conflict resolvers II: in dance and song

Monday, August 5th, 2013

[ by Charles Cameron — what can these two stunning performances tell us about conflict and / or peace? ]
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I’m not sure if I’ve said it here before, but conflict resolution is pretty much the same as peace making, hence my title for both parts of this post, Blessed are the conflict resolvers (Matthew 5.9). In the second part of this post, I’d like to shared with you two stunning and highly stylized situations in which peace and conflict are brought together by sheer art.

Battle as dance, from Carlos Saura‘s Carmen — in the aftermath of a gambling disagreement, the jealous rivalry of two men over the young female lead bursts into violent dance:

And …

The battle of songs, from Breuer and Telson‘s Gospel at Colonus. Oedipus, played here by Clarence Fountain and the Blind Boys of Alabama, at the end of his days, wishes to enter the city of Colonus and find rest and the peace prophesied for him at last — the people of Colonus, knowing him accursed, try to resist him:

**

What can we learn from these two examples of conflict circumscribed within the parameters of art?

For comparison, here are two reports of the stylized Beating Retreat ceremony at the Wagah Border crossing, jointly performed each evening by the Indian Border Security Force and Pakistan Rangers and aptly described as a “synchronized display of stomps and shouts” — with some suggestive comments about the rivalry between the two nations in each.

From Michael Palin:

and from Voice of America:

Posted in Charles Cameron, India, movies, pakistan, Patterns, peace, Uncategorized, youtube | Comments Off on Blessed are the conflict resolvers II: in dance and song

Concerning two Lifebuoys

Friday, July 26th, 2013

[ by Charles Cameron — nothing strategic or serious, just dropping a little beauty your way ]
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Here’s a DoubleQuote that doesn’t fit my usual graphic format, but that gives me enough delight that I thought I’d post it anyway.

It all begins with a friend pointing me to this video — it’s quite beautiful, it’s a commercial, and it’s promoting a Lifebuoy campaign, in their words, “to help reduce the deaths of two million children before their fifth birthday” by means of their “handwashing behaviour change programmes”:

Okay: so I like the video very much, but I know nothing about Lifebuoy, their politics, their labor practices, the things that might make me hesitate to be quite as delighted by the video as I might be if there wasn’t a massive “international” tied in with the short and moving narrative. So I googled “Lifebuoy”…

**

And found this poem, which has nothing to do with soap but a great deal to do with telling a short and beautiful story — albeit with the simplicity of words, of poetry:

Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy
–Thomas Lux
.

For some semitropical reason
when the rains fall
relentlessly they fall

into swimming pools, these otherwise
bright and scary
arachnids. They can swim
a little, but not for long

and they can’t climb the ladder out.
They usually drown—but
if you want their favor,
if you believe there is justice,
a reward for not loving

the death of ugly
and even dangerous (the eel, hog snake,
rats) creatures, if

you believe these things, then
you would leave a lifebuoy
or two in your swimming pool at night.

And in the morning
you would haul ashore
the huddled, hairy survivors

and escort them
back to the bush, and know,
be assured that at least these saved,
as individuals, would not turn up

again someday
in your hat, drawer,
or the tangled underworld

of your socks, and that even—
when your belief in justice
merges with your belief in dreams—
they may tell the others

in a sign language
four times as subtle
and complicated as man’s

that you are good,
that you love them,
that you would save them again.

**

The video and the poem are very different — yet closely connected, coming to me as they did, hot on one another’s heels the other day. I celebrate them here as an informal DoubleQuote, with gratitude to Google.

May I recommend, to myself when my ship comes in and to others: Thomas Lux, New and Selected Poems: 1975-1995.

Posted in Charles Cameron, Doublequotes, google, India, poetry, Uncategorized, youtube | 2 Comments »

Blessed are the conflict resolvers II: in dance and song

Tuesday, July 16th, 2013

[ by Charles Cameron — what can these two stunning performances tell us about conflict and / or peace? ]
.

I’m not sure if I’ve said it here before, but conflict resolution is pretty much the same as peace making, hence my title for both parts of this post, Blessed are the conflict resolvers (Matthew 5.9). In the second part of this post, I’d like to shared with you two stunning and highly stylized situations in which peace and conflict are brought together by sheer art.

Battle as dance, from Carlos Saura‘s Carmen — in the aftermath of a gambling disagreement, the jealous rivalry of two men over the young female lead bursts into violent dance:

And …

The battle of songs, from Breuer and Telson‘s Gospel at Colonus. Oedipus, played here by Clarence Fountain and the Blind Boys of Alabama, at the end of his days, wishes to enter the city of Colonus and find rest and the peace prophesied for him at last — the people of Colonus, knowing him accursed, try to resist him:

**

What can we learn from these two examples of conflict circumscribed within the parameters of art?

For comparison, here are two reports of the stylized Beating Retreat ceremony at the Wagah Border crossing, jointly performed each evening by the Indian Border Security Force and Pakistan Rangers and aptly described as a “synchronized display of stomps and shouts” — with some suggestive comments about the rivalry between the two nations in each.

From Michael Palin:

and from Voice of America:

Posted in Charles Cameron, India, movies, pakistan, Patterns, peace, Uncategorized, youtube | 1 Comment »

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