Prudence

John Ralston Saul:

"Beyond politics, many would assume that prudent behaviour meant in a sense conservative behaviour. But that would be to misunderstand the meaning of common sense. The very essence of good military strategy - which often means radical behaviour - has always been built around prudence. Two and a half millennia ago Sun Tzu set out the basic rules. His incisive summary was further summarized by Mao Tse-tung into a sixteen character jingle which provided the general instructions for defeating Chiang Kai-shek:

1. When the enemy advances, we retreat!
2. When the enemy halts, we harass!
3. When the enemy seeks to avoid battle, we attack!
4. When the enemy retreats, we pursue!

The Viet Minh and Viet Cong in turn took this perfect evocation of common sense as their method for defeating two of the most rationally organised armies in history - firts the French and then the American."

p46 On Equilibrium, 2001.

tigersnake eating a frog

This is a photo from the early weeks at the new house in Elleker. I nearly stepped on this snake an hour earlier, then when I was inside I heard the last of the frogs in the bathtub squealing...

Déjeuner du matin

Il a mis le café
Dans la tasse
Il a mis le lait
Dans la tasse de café
Il a mis le sucre
Dans le café au lait
Avec la petite cuiller
Il a tourné
Il a bu le café au lait
Et il a reposé la tasse
Sans me parler

Il a allumé
Une cigarette
Il a fait des ronds
Avec la fumée
Il a mis les cendres
Dans le cendrier
Sans me parler
Sans me regarder

Il s'est levé
Il a mis
Son chapeau sur sa tête
Il a mis
Son manteau de pluie
Parce qu'il pleuvait
Et il est parti
Sous la pluie
Sans une parole
Sans me regarder
Et moi j'ai pris
Ma tête dans ma main
Et j'ai pleuré.

Jacques Prévert

A couple of my favourite poems from high school. The first I love for its simplicity, the second for its sentiment and beautiful sounds. Verlaine, watching his youth drift away as he lies in prison, due to his arrest after a drunken rage at Rimbaud, if I remember right.


Le ciel est par dessus....

Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit,
Si bleu, si calme!
Un arbre, par-dessus le toit,
Berce sa palme.

La cloche, dans le ciel qu'on voit,
Doucement tinte,
Un oiseau sur l'arbre qu'on voit,
Chante sa plainte.

Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, la vie est là,
Simple et tranquille.
Cette paisible rumeur-là
Vient de la ville.

-Qu'as-tu fait, ô toi que voilà
Pleurant sans cesse,
Dis, qu'as-tu fait, toi que voilà,
De ta jeunesse?

Paul Verlaine (Sagesse)

I view myself with detachment? No, I hunt myself out frantically.

But is only through the words of others and their memories of you that you come into being in the world.

Be careful who you choose as your friends.

Back to the Nullabor Crossing

yeah, so as i was saying, i stopped the night at Tintinara, then drove a bit more, and came to this little town, which is just a railway siding for loading grain.




love these silos!

134 ZEN VIEW*

…how should one make the most of a view? It turns out that the pattern which answers this question helps to govern not the rooms and windows on a building, but the places of transition. It helps to place and detail ENTRANCE TRANSITION (112), ENTRANCE ROOM (130), SHORT PASSAGES (132), THE STAIRCASE AS STAGE (133) - and outside, PATHS AS GOALS (120).

* * *

The archetypal zen view occurs on a famous Japanese house, which gives this pattern its name.

A Buddhist monk lived high in the mountains in a small stone house. Far, far in the distance was the ocean, visible and beautiful from the mountains. But it was not visible from the monks house itself, nor from the approach road to the house. However, in front of the house there stood a courtyard surrounded by a thick stone wall. As one came to the house, one passed through a gate into this court, then diagonally across the court to the front of the house. On the far side of the courtyard there was a slit in the wall, narrow and diagonal, cut through the thickness of the wall. As a person walked across the court, at one spot, where his position lined up with the slit in the wall, for an instant, he could see the ocean. And then he was past it once again, and went into the house.

What is it happens in that courtyard? The view of the distant sea is so restrained that is stays alive forever. Who, that has ever seen that view, can forget it? Its power will never fade. Even for the man who lives there, coming past that view day after day for fifty years, it will still be alive.

This is the essence of the problem with any view. It is a beautiful thing. One wants to enjoy it and drink it in every day. But the more open it is, the more obvious, the more it shouts, the sooner it will fade. Gradually it will become part of the building, like the wallpaper; and the intensity of its beauty will no longer be accessible to the people that live there.

Therefore:

If there is a beautiful view, don’t spoil it by building huge windows that gape incessantly at it. Instead, put the windows that look onto the view at places of transition – along paths, in hallways, in entry ways, on stairs, between rooms.

If the view window is correctly placed, people will see a glimpse of the distant view as they come up to the window or pass it: but the view is never visible from the places where people stay.

Put in the windows to complete the indirectness of the view – NATURAL DOORS AND WINDOWS (221); place them to help the TAPESTRY OF LIGHT AND DARK (135); and build a set from which a person can enjoy the view – WINDOW PLACE (180). If the view must be visible from inside a room, make a special corner of the room which looks onto the view, so that the enjoyment of the view becomes a definite act in its own right…

Zen View is pattern number 134, pp 641-43, of A Pattern Language – Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein with Max Jacobson, Ingrid Fiksdahl-King and Shlomo Angel. Center for Environmental Structure, Berkley, California. New York Oxford University Press, 1977.

Right is that which allows you to breathe, and allows others to breathe.