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Reptilian Investigations [Haiku]
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Author Archives: B Gourley
DAILY PHOTO: St. Andrew’s Church, Vasco da Gama
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Hot Nights [Haiku]
Summer sunset
over the sprawling sea:
blackness brings no cool.
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“One’s-Self I Sing” by Walt Whitman [w/ Audio]
One's-Self I sing, a simple separate person,
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-masse.
Of physiology from top to toe I sing,
Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is
worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete
is worthier far,
The Female equally with the Male I sing.
Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws
divine,
The Modern Man I sing.
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Survivors [Haiku]
with winter at hand,
the last crisp leaves yield
only to stout gales.
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Dark Slate Sea [Haiku]
dark slate seas
pound the rocky coast,
fringing it foam-white.
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DAILY PHOTO: Scenes from Dihua Old Street, Taipei
“Ancient” [Poetry Style #5] by Sikong Tu [w/ Audio]
Immortals ride truth
With lotus in hand,
As chaos unfolds
Unlogged above land.
Moonrise in the East
As good winds are fanned.
Hill shrine in blue night,
Bell rings clear and grand.
The god is now gone
Beyond border lands
Huangdi* is not there
Great Age to wasteland.
NOTE: The late Tang Dynasty poet, Sikong Tu (a.k.a. Ssŭ-k‘ung T‘u,) wrote an ars poetica entitled Twenty-Four Styles of Poetry. It presents twenty-four poems that are each in a different tone, reflecting varied concepts from Taoist philosophy and aesthetics. Above is a crude translation of the fifth of the twenty-four poems. This poem’s Chinese title is 高古 (Gāo Gǔ,) and it was translated as “Height – Antiquity” by Herbert Giles.
*Huangdi is a name for the Yellow Emperor that is more syllabically friendly than “Yellow Emperor.” In a great oversimplification for the sake of speed and alignment of context, the Yellow Emperor was China’s King Arthur — a mythical leader of great virtue and heroism. The Tang emperors tried to trace lineages back to the Yellow Emperor, but such imagined linkages to the perfect leader are hard to maintain when an Emperor like Xuanzong crashes the ship of state.
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PROMPT: Foods
Of late, I’ve thought it would be fun to learn to make some of my Chinese favorites — e.g. Kung Pao Chicken (宫保鸡丁,) Twice-Cooked Pork (回锅肉,) and Sesame Chicken (芝麻鸡.)
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BOOKS: “Introducing Freud Wars: A Graphic Guide” by Stephen Wilson & Oscar Zarate
Introducing the Freud Wars: A Graphic Guide by Stephen WilsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Website
I’ve always been fascinated by a question about Sigmund Freud. I can’t think of another scholar in modern times who managed to become not only a household name but virtually synonymous with his discipline while being so spectacularly wrong on so many levels. Sure, if you go back to ancient times, you have individuals with similar name recognition (e.g. Plato and Aristotle) who made some major league intellectual boners, but that was ancient times — pre-scientific method and in an age when employment of any rationality at all set one apart. The question of interest is: How did Freud pull it off?
This book helps one better understand the issue, and to answer a crucial related question: “Did the establishment, in Freud’s day, swallow his ideas hook line and sinker?” The answer is “no,” and that is the central theme of the book, the opposition faced by Freud in his day. Wilson frames the debate, presenting both sides. (And sometimes three sides, for there were a number of “super-Freudians” who felt that Freud didn’t lean hard enough into his own ideas about childhood sexuality being the key to an individual’s adult psychology.) It should be noted that this series has a book that is on Freud and his work. I haven’t read that book, but presumably it focuses less on Freud’s detractors and the nature of their criticisms and more on the entirety of Freud’s ideas (not just the most intensely refuted among them.)
This book focuses heavily on Freud’s controversial sex-centric ideas, particularly those involving infant sexuality, the Oedipal complex, transference, penis-envy, and hysteria. It does touch upon other Freudian ideas, such as dream interpretation and the “Superego,” but these are much less intensely explored, probably because they were less controversial. (Which is not to say they were correct, but that they were less potentially damaging.)
I found this book interesting, and believe I had a better grasp of Freud and his ideas and even had a more sympathetic view of him by the end.
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Tiger Riding for Beginners 