Also in LA (well Pasadena)
Our good friend Rosalyn Myles has a new installation in the group show Darkness & Light at the Armory Northwest. The Opening reception is Saturday, January 20, 7-9 p.m.
Supreme Ultimate Wednesdays
For the past three months or so I have been learning Supreme Ultimate Fist, which is usually referred to using its Chinese name, Tai Chi Chuan (also Taiji Quan). For most people this brings to mind large groups of old folks exercising in unison in the park. It is that, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Supreme Ultimate Fist dates back to around 1000 a.d. in China when it was invented to mimic the movements of a snake fighting a sparrow.
Tai Chi Chuan is a soft martial art, it is all about internal forces and keeping the muscles relaxed. When striking the force lashes out like a whip, coming out of the ground, gathered at the hips, and redirects the force of your opponent back at them. It has its roots in Taoism, and in the balance of Yin and Yang. My early interest in the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu probably helped to lay a foundation for my interest in Tai Chi. The concept of Yin and Yang is pervasive in the form – it applies to each movement, it applies to the application of force when confronted in the fighting style, and it applies to the mind/body duality of the practice. There is always a balance of forces, and this is what makes it so strong.
The style I am learning is the Yang style, developed in the early 1800s by Yang Lu-ch’an. In the past two weeks, I have been working on the forms Carry Tiger to the Mountain, Repulse the Monkey, Diagonal Flying, Needle on the Bottom of the Sea, and Back as Fan (or Iron Fan). Just taking a glance at these written instructions for Repulse the Monkey you can get an idea of how complex the practice is.. but it is not something to read about and then do, it is about repeating the movement and focusing on careful control of your internal forces. Much of the skill is internal, so it really can’t be learned by simply copying the movement. Since it requires you to keep your muscles always relaxed, and to strike only from your whole body force (not from your arm, or shoulder for example) it feels a bit unnatural at first. It is difficult to stay soft, yet become capable of striking with force. This is why Taiji is taught in slow-motion, so that you can completely learn all the internal movements and balances required to execute the forms correctly. When you have mastered the long (slow) form, you move on the the fast form, sparring (Push Hands) and even sword or other weapon forms.
There are a whole bunch of great videos up featuring the various forms of Taiji Quan. Here a few:
Excerpt from the Yang Style long form (what I am learning at the moment)
Example of application to fighting Notice in the slowed down attack that his hand and arm remains soft and loose, even while striking his opponent in the head. The whip-like nature of Taiji also allows for extremely fast, forceful attacks which your opponent cannot anticipate.
Martin Luther King, Jr.: I Have a Dream
August 28, 1963. If you have ten minutes or so, its worth watching the whole thing – I bet you have only heard snippets from this one.
Motion graphics, philosophy and sillyness. Excellent.
via K10K
“O Octagon, O Octagon,
You have eight sides u-pon you”
The Defective Yeti re-writes “Oh Christmas Tree” for his Squirrely. Always a good read.
Also – one of my heroes, and one of the few celebrity types I seriously want to take out to dinner for a nice chat: David Bowie turns 60. Found at TMN.
Also. There is so much good stuff over at BLDG.BLOG lately, you should just read all day. Want a Banana?
Joy Division Atmosphere
This is such a great video.. love the people (druids? monks?) carrying the huge shapes across the beach. I was just searching around youtube, and figured I would drop it in here for the weekend. Enjoy.
A couple of weeks ago my friend Mike Feldman came over with a huge bag of audio gear, and I took out all the analogue sound-making things I could find around the house, and we dumped it all on my desk. Then we grabbed a nice shotgun mic that is on loan to us, and proceeded to record a lot of sounds. We did a mix (well, Mike mostly mixed it while I watched and had him move a few things around). And here it is. It’s got some guitar, bamboo flute, glass vases blown across the top, singing bowls, steel chime balls, a folk hand-piano thing (I don’t really know what to call it), an ice-skating 45 on my Fisher Price record player, computer keyboard, mouth harp.. I don’t remember what else. Oh, and sounds from the camera as it takes the photos shown here. That is the only non-acoustic part I guess, is a digital camera an electric instrument? It was a whole lot of fun, and is about 10 minutes long. I recommend headphones, as there are a lot of little fun sounds in there.
For the past couple of days our friend Orrin has been hanging out at the Rise Industries studios, editing a new music video he directed for Kristin Hersh at one of the editing bays (read: my old G4). He is currently putting the finishing touches on that one, but he does have a very nice video for +/- (Plus Minus) up on YouTube that you can check out. It’s created entirely from still shots (yes, even when you are absolutely certain there is some video in there. All stills) using After Effects. Nice, nice and nice. He takes a lot of photos.
Also. He brought one of these over, and I am going to play with it all weekend. You know the intro to In the Air Tonight, by Phil Collins? Yeah, it makes those sounds.
Alright. Back from a bit of vacation. Holiday you know, might have noticed it yourself. Firstly was Hanukah. It gets spelled all kinds of different ways, so hopefully you know what I mean. That lasted one Beatles week (you know, eight days a week and all that). Then there was this whole Christmas thing, then the year sort of ended, and a new one started. That was a celebration too. Thanks from us to everyone who either came over, invited us over, or wished us a happy one or both of those holiday things. It was a great week, even though we didn’t get to hit the east coast this year to see family, friends, and the lovely cold snow.
We did do a few things. Went on a camping trip to the desert for one – Joshua Tree in the Mojave. For those who don’t live out west, the desert is a very nice place in winter. Its clear, sunny. Warmish during the day. That means could be 50 to 70 degrees most of the time. Coldish during the night, to sometimes being damn cold at night. We had nighttime temperatures in the mid 30s. Not bad. So, I put photos from the trip up on the flickr site – hit the link to your left-hand side there.
Also, since I can’t stay away from the computer for 10 days in a row (or even two apparently), I have started working on a complete site overhaul/redesign. This clunky late 90s interface is going away, and we will bring out some less clunky kind of thing. Possibly bright orange. I hope. Anway. The design is moving along, and several nice designer friends are helping me learn how to actually implement what I want to do. So, look for that maybe later this month, though it could take longer to move all our info over.
Alright. So lets get back to it.
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