DAILY PHOTO: Perching Cardinal
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“Fortune-teller’s Song” by Su Shi [w/ Audio]
The crescent moon hangs on a barren tree.
The water clock has stopped and all is still.
Who sees the sad man pace the shore alone?
His shadow slants and curls into a swan.
The startled man stiffens and turns to look;
His grief remains unseen by anyone.
He passes on a seat of fallen log,
And plops down on the wet and cold sandbank.
NOTE: The original title is: 卜算子.
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Snake [Lyric Poem]
I saw a snake had made a gnarly bed --
On logs and stones, its length did curl and thread.
Ah, to be comfy on bark's ragged bumps...
I wake up when PJ's wad to a lump.
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Cold River [Haiku]
goose at water's edge:
cold river flows around
unmoving legs.
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DAILY PHOTO: Monochrome Danube
BOOKS: “The Book of Five Rings” by Miyamoto Musashi [trans. by Thomas Cleary] [w/ Yagyu Munenori’s “Book of Family Traditions”]
The Book of Five Rings: A Classic Text on the Japanese Way of the Sword by Miyamoto MusashiMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher Site – Shambhala Publications
This edition, i.e. The Shambhala Pocket Library edition, contains two guides to strategy, tactics, and philosophy of combat by famous early Edo Period swordsmen. The titular work is Miyamoto Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings, but the volume also contains Yagyu Munenori’s The Book of Family Traditions. The naming of the book is meant to capitalize on the continuing popularity of Musashi, who remains well-known to this day not only because of his own works and legend, but because of an afterlife in pop culture that ranges from Eiji Yoshikawa’s novel to a recent Netflix animated series. That said, one shouldn’t conclude Yagyu Munenori was some sort of slouch. He was, in fact, a martial arts teacher to the Shogun’s son, and he founded a branch of his family’s martial arts school that continues to this day.
It is interesting to see these two guides back-to-back, being by authors whose lifespans largely overlapped, though – in other ways – their lives were quite different. While there is some conceptual overlap in these guides, the two definitely show two very different minds at work, Musashi the pragmatic eccentric and Yagyu the Zen philosopher of noble standing.
Miyamoto Musashi is probably the most famous swordsman in Japan’s history. Oddly enough, he’s not known for his experience in battle (he lived at the tail end of the Warring States period and was only in a couple battles), but – rather – for his 62 duels. The Book of Five Rings and other works he left behind are certainly important factors in his continuing fame. Musashi was a bit of a renaissance man: painter, poet, and sculptor in addition to a swordsman. He also left behind a school of swordsmanship, Niten Ichi-ryū.
The Book of Five Rings is divided into five parts: earth scroll, water scroll, fire scroll, wind scroll, and void scroll.
The earth scroll provides an overview of martial science and an introduction to Musashi’s school, which is noted for its simultaneous use of both the large and short sword. A section is devoted the rhythm of martial arts, a crucial topic. It also includes what might be considered Musashi’s 9-point budō kun (a list of warrior precepts.)It’s worth mentioning a couple of these:
#7 Become aware of what is not obvious.
#9 Do not do anything useless.
The Water scroll describes Musashi’s approach to swordsmanship. It covers a range of elements of a martial art including footwork, the focus of one’s eyes, physical posture, mental posture, techniques, and approaches to cutting and thrusting.
The Fire scroll deals with the strategic or interactive aspects of the battle.
The Wind scroll explores other martial arts. Musashi discusses martial arts that use an unusually long sword, an atypically short sword, that focus on powerful strikes, and those that focus on many rapid strikes. He contrasts other martial arts with his own on subjects such as their focus with the eyes and their footwork.
The void scroll deals with, well, emptiness. It’s actually a short wrap-up.
Yagyu’s guide is much more philosophical and mind-centric. It’s not that Musashi doesn’t deal with such topics, but he also devotes considerable space to more practical nuts and bolts of swordsmanship and strategy. It’s also true that Yagyu gets into technical considerations such as control of distancing (if in a bit more poetic way than Musashi.) One can get a feel for the nature of Yagyu’s Book of Family Traditions [on the Art of War] by seeing how it is organized into three parts: “The Killing Sword,” “The Life-Giving Sword,” and “No Sword.” The latter two indicating the author’s belief in the importance of not equating warrior and killer (nor winning with killing) as well as not fixating on the sword.
These two men had great insight into strategy and the tactics of swordsmanship, their guides are worth being read and reread. And the two authors do offer two intriguingly different approaches to a similar subject.
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“The Bumblebee” by James Whitcomb Riley [w/ Audio]
You better not fool with a Bumblebee!--
Ef you don't think they can sting -- you'll see!
They're lazy to look at, an' kind o' go
Buzzin' an' bummin' aroun' so slow,
An' ac' so slouchy an' all fagged out,
Danglin' their legs as they drone about
The hollyhawks 'at they can't climb in
'Ithout ist a-tumble-un out ag'in!
Wunst I watched one climb clean 'way
In a jimson-blossom, I did, one day,--
An' I ist grabbed it -- an' nen let go--
An' "Ooh-ooh! Honey! I told ye so!"
Says The Raggedy Man; an' he ist run
An' pullt out the stinger, an' don't laugh none,
An' says: "They has be'n folks, I guess,
'At thought I wuz prejudust, more or less, --
Yit I still muntain 'at a Bumblebee
Wears out his welcome too quick fer me!"
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Quiet City Snow [Haiku]
overnight snow
falls on a quiet city;
it awakes to white.
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DAILY PHOTO: Winter Scene from Buda Castle
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BOOKS: “Linguistics: A Very Short Introduction” by P.H. Matthews
Linguistics: A Very Short Introduction by P.H. MatthewsMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher Site – OUP
This book offers an overview of the territory studied by the discipline of linguistics, from general topics such as what a language is and what distinguishes human language through more technical and scientific subjects such as the nature of vocal sound and the role of the brain in language.
It introduced me to some interesting ideas that I hadn’t previously given much thought, such as: the importance of redundancy in language, the idea that a word can’t necessarily be thought of as simply a label put on a pre-existing notion or thing, the question of whether language developed once or multiple times (independently,) how languages are learned, and how speaking influences thinking and vice versa.
Until the penultimate chapter (Ch. 8 – “Sounds”) I felt the book was doing a fine job of sticking to the basics, being interesting but not obscure. The “Sounds” chapter seemed to get more into the weeds than the rest (but, I’ll concede, it may have been part my relative interest in the topic, your results may vary.)
The book, like others in the series, has a few monochrome graphics as well as a “Further Reading” section.
If one is looking for a broad introduction to linguistics, I’d recommend this as a fine place to start.
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Tiger Riding for Beginners 