HE DIDN'T LISTEN!

Sometimes, while browsing through the Chinese dictionary after a passage in a text that proved baffling, one runs across a word of limited usefulness in the modern era. It was a different world back then, with its own strange beauty, and perhaps neurotic attention to certain details which might rewardingly be brought back to life.

聝 ('gwik'): To sever the left ears of those slain in battle.

I can imagine any number of happy circumstances where this might prove useful.
Why the left ear? I do not know. That's the odd part.
He won't need either of them.


I'm probably going to spend all day wondering.



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FLICKERING AT THE EDGE OF THE PAGE

Years ago I happily went through various language dictionaries at night, trying to fall asleep. Which, I discovered, didn't work. I started noticing patterns, and would then leaf back several hundred pages to confirm my surmise. Yes! Indeed it IS related to that! They clearly have the same root! The excitement, palpable, would keep me awake till four or five in the morning.

So as a technique for restful slumber it was a complete failure.
I would dream in words with nothing holding them together.
Which is better than dreaming in excel.
Also did that.


Often I still like word-hunting. Which in Chinese dictionaries is quite rewarding, and yields stuff that sometimes is of no earthly use whatsoever. Such as the word 𥎐 which occurs in less than half a dozen texts, and isn't defined in any of the dictionaries I normally consult. It's mentioned, with quotes for context, from which we might construct a possible meaning.
The word did not survive long enough to settle in.

𥎐

Despite my seal-script construction, which is zeer verantwoord, there is no seal-script or Jinwen version of the beast on the internet. It existed long enough for someone to invent a character -- presumably enough readers understood it, especially in context, in texts to which they were fortunately privy -- but possibly less than one or two generations later was no longer au courant. Not quite the hip with it literate vocabulary item.

Now that I 'know' it, what the heck do I do with it?



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FIRE, WORMS, AND A BUGGY THING

One of the characters in written Chinese which has always had a more than usual appeal to me is the word for a candle or oil lamp. It shows up in a number of poems and essays, and has through my reading acquired a connotation of late nights bent over books, as well as the companionship of someone similarly engaged. In Chinese culture that almost always means long hours, years even, of preparing for the exams which opened the door to future success and a respectable position in the administration of the realm, as well as possibly estimation in the eyes of one's fellow citizens as a man of letters and cultural pursuits. Or, in the case of a few eccentrics, gracefully retirement from public life after a few years of doing one's duty, living in a rustic cottage just beyond the urban hurly burly, and firmly shutting the gate.

燭
['juk']

For many families, a succesful degree holder was the car key for the ride out of poverty and a brutal existence. The hopes of everyone rested on the shoulders of the scholar. Passing the exams was fulfilment of filial piety, all the requirements of propriety, personal responsibilities, and the duties of a civilized man.

Of course the first task upon appointment to office as a licentiate was to make sure that others in the family acquired the education necessary. One man alone cannot drag the clan out of the mud.

The second task was to keep one's nose clean. A scholar's disgrace could wreck the family's present, and their future.

SEAL SCRIP VARIANT OF 燭 WITH WEIGHTED STROKES

Chinese history is littered with the splendid achievements of scholars who at some point failed in their ascent, and became artists, hermits, recluses, and great poets and men of literature. Sometimes it was even imperial policy to sidetrack scholarly families with certain tendencies, by gainful employment suitable for their kind, in order that they not be able to upset the applecart. Or become dangerous dissidents and free-thinkers instituting "undesirable" reforms in government departments.

That, basically, describes the scholarly milieu of Central China during most of the Manchu dynasty. Libraries, book depositories, literati painters, and philologists.
Harmless, but glorious.

In part because of their efforts I can break apart the seal-script character I drew as being composed of a meaning indicator (火 'fo') on one side with a phonetic element on the other, which itself is compounded of a creepy crawly thingy inside a cocoon with eyes (蜀 'suk), primitively a silkworm, but also later (but still since millenia) the one syllable referent to Sichuan (anciently known for bronze, jade, and silk).



I wish to mention that the Chinese term for 'computer' could be interpreted as "sparky brain". Which is precisely how this entire essay and the illustration came about: sparky brain.
Caused by caffeine since lunch.




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THE SESAME BISCUITS MADE ME DO IT

In reading the text on a packet of confections (sweet sesame biscuits with black and white sesame seeds speckled upon them) a section stood out as completely illegible because of the smallness of the printed characters. The English translation gave the entire phrase as "compound leavening agent". The Chinese compound word is 複配膨松劑 ('fuk pui paang chung joi'). Literally: return matched swollen pine dosage. Um.....
Or 'again allocate inflated pine medication'.

複配膨松劑

I looked up the word 膨 ('paang'). For which there is no antique seal script or jinwen variant, because it had not been invented two and a half millenia ago. So I created one.

Naturally you would have done the same. Seeing as all the parts are recognizable. In order: a slice of ham, a drum being beaten (the tongue symbolically shooting up to indicate sound), three stripes of a tiger representing the vibrations or noise issuing forth. The throbbing of the flesh, the swollen appearance of bloated meat, and, happily, a glyph which could also be a cauldron above which is steam or vapour, telling the keen culinarist to cast in the striped meat (obviously bacon or pork belly in this tale) and fix it up for dinner.

I'm thinking ginger, scallion, a hefty jigger of cooking sherry, and a dash of soy sauce. Plus one or two whole star anise and a tablespoon of sugar. About two hours or more.
A very low flame simmer till the liquid is nice and reduced.

Sort of the lazy man's version of Tung-Po Pork.
東坡肉。



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IT SPOILS MY CONFECTION!

You may have noticed that I tend toward English spellings instead of American ones in some cases. This is not sheer perversity, but because the American standard just looks wrong. Centre, colour, spectre, hiccough. It probably in some way reflects my age when I became aware of the word, seeing as we had books published in England at home, and there wasn't an educator who would throw hissy fits if I spelled it by his or her standards incorrectly. It also works in reverse: elevator instead of lift, raincoat or windbreaker in lieu of cagoule (dang you Brits are weird), rainboots rather than Wellingtons or Wellies, and math or mathematics over "maths". That latter is painfully berserk; Brits, get with the programme, dagnabbit!

[I was taught how to read and write in Dutch at school. English literacy I acquired on my own.]

So naturally I get a wee peevish when faced with modern Chinese from the Mainland, which uses simplified characters. For instance 咸 ('haam'; together, all complete, unified) instead of 鹹 ('haam'; salty, briny, steeped in pickling liquid, stingy). Same pronunciations, and the first character is rarely used by its original meaning, so contextually it will be quite clear what is actually meant, though it still looks wrong. Likewise, 万 ('man'; ten thousand, a myriad) for accounting purposes (where there have always been alternate forms) isn't too horrible.

Stupid looking, but I'll grudgingly let it pass. Should actually be 萬 ('man'; an obsolete word for a kind of scorpion that sounded conveniently the same as the word for myriad and was borrowed for that purpose a very long time ago).

I am currently looking at a box of tasty snack biscuits. In English: "cake seasoned with meat floss". In Chinese characters: 肉松饼 ('yiuk sung beng'), which correctly should be 肉鬆餅 lest people like me read it as "meat, pine, and a goofy glyph". The last character (饼) simply looks funky, though the phonetic element (并) is clear: beng. By itself it signifies combination, annexed, and 'und so weiter'.

However, it's that second simplified character which irritates me unreasonably.

Why on earth would you take the phonetic element (松) and use it instead of the correct character (鬆), when by itself it is still in use in the modern language?
That's not logical, but just plain lazy!

The fact that there is no seal script or ancient bronze inscription of the word which looks like my speculative rendering of 鬆 above makes no difference; there should be one, irrespective of that word not having existed two and a half millennia ago, and the picture above shows what it would have looked like. Pine (松) did exist at that time. Please respect it.
Characters are not silly putty that can be bent and twisted at whim.
I literarily don't care that it's become common.



By the way, the jinwen script version of 萬 is shown below:

Secondary meanings, besides scorpion, are trance-dancing and sorcery, sometimes the daemonically possessed shamanesses beloved by simple peasant types.
Jinwen (bronze inscriptions) predate seal script.
And is often more elegant, I think.



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TEN THOUSAND FOO

Over on one of the language nerd pages someone posted the character for 'zero' in Chinese and Kanji. In meme format. Which resulted in multiple likes and wows. My favourite character in the numerics, however, is a scorpion.

That is to say, it started off as a scorpion. Eventually that word for scorpion fell into disuse, and was repurposed. In sealscript and prior script forms it still looks like a scorpion, but the modern script version bears less resemblance to the nasty creepy crawly:

萬

It crops up in the name of a Chinatown restaurant (萬壽宮餐廳 'maan sau gung chan teng'; Grant Place Restaurant, located at 737 Washington Street, San Francisco, CA 94108 Tel.: 415-982-3705) where it means ten thousand long lives (an auspicious phrase), as well as the standard phrase 萬富 ('maan fu'), a myriad good fortunes, which shows up in too many contexts to count, as well as well wishes.

It also shows up in the roundels on modern famille verte, jaune, or rose porcelain, especially utalitarian objects. Cups, bowls, plates, saucers, teapots, etcetera.

Whether sau or fu depends on the manufacturer.

The version shown above predates seal script (篆書 'suen syu'), being a scriptform employed for bronze inscriptions from two thousand years bce to about the third or fourth century bce: 金文 ('kam man') or 鐘鼎文 ('jung ding man'). Note that formerly 金文 was also sometimes referred to as Greater Seal Script (大篆 'daai suen'), thus conflating it with later styles.


I am fondly imagining the character above happily whispering "booga booga booga" to itself, thinking that it's still potent and frightening. And perhaps it lives under people's beds.


Booga booga booga!



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PAT MYSELF ON THE BACK

Cut my hair, and paid the utility, internet, telephone, and medical insurance bills ahead and forward. Which means I can be an irresponsible idiot for the next two months. Not that I was actually planning to do that (the idiot part), seeing as I'm a stern puritanical sort, but it's a talent. The only things I absolutely must still do are head to the bank (tomorrow, as it's too late today), and purchase both fresh ginger and two or three bottles of Sriracha. That last is essential. Huy Fong has let it be known that there may (will) be a shortage. And seeing as Sriracha makes life in the United States tolerable, you don't want me openly revolting.
That, too, is a talent.

Some of my favourites places to eat may have to make do with the Sriracha made overseas, like the version produced in Toishan, and I expect sambal oelek may be in short supply also.

We must endure. Tolerate. Restrain ourselves. Suffer. Forbear.
For me this will be considerably easier than others.


Partly because there's a wide spectrum of chili peppers and hot condiments which are up to my standards, and partly because I do not intend to run out. Under any circumstances.

The character above (忍 'yan') is appropriate for the rest of you all. It's something that shows up calligraphically in every Hong Kong gangster movie or martial arts flick. Endure. Tolerate. Restrain. Suffer. Forbear. Steel yourself, and keep a stiff upper lip.

You all have my kindly support. My piles bleed for you. That's a colourful British expression expressing "mild" sympathy, and should not be taken literally.

In the meantime, I'm heading out to lunch.
And grocery shopping.


Buck up, you all.
Be strong.



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THE SAN FRANCISCO FOG

The most typically San Franciscan things that people experience when they come here are littering, loonies, and a complete absence of clean comfortable places to take a leak because that's where the drug addicts would shoot up and turn tricks if such venues were available. These are all quite opposite of small town America, where everything is spotlessly clean, there are no loonies or drug addicts, and there's a toilet on every street corner.

If they stay too long, the liberals here will steal their souls, traffic their children for candy bars and spare change, and turn them into godless drug addicts.
Who will be desperate for places to pee.

There are no warm toilets here.
But we've got hippies.
And crabs.

Okay?!?!!?

Oh, and when the weather is right, we've got fog.

When I caught the bus back from Chinatown after tea and a smoke, an angry looking white dude was on the other side of the street shouting stuff about the Chinese, and kind of upset that everyone ignored him. I'm kind of hoping the cops rough him up en route to general for 72 hours in the psych ward, before those Chinese American ex-marines discover him.
No matter how crazy someone is, they're more of a mess when they're pounded.

We need a cultural exchange program with the great American heartland. We'll return their loonies and the opioid-crazed relatives they've chased away, so that they can see what's become of them, in return for their mothers and aunties who can cook rice-a-roni with appropriate neat-o keen recipes. We might even install public toilets for them.

Other than the loud crazy guy, of whom I became aware while on Waverly with my pipe, it was a pleasant quiet period of contemplation. And day dreaming.
A man sometimes needs to let his mind go.



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WHEN THERE WERE MONSTERS

One of the words I ran across the other day was a new one for me: 蠪蛭 ('lung jat'). Nowadays it means 'scorpion leech', a multi-headed monstrous semi-canine or lupine creature that sounds like a loud whiny insect and eats babies. The common image shows nine heads. The first character will not have an actual definition in most dictionaries, but is found in the Shuowen and Kangxi, This creature allegedly occurs in the North East.
Sorry, not New England. Perhaps Texas.

There was a day and age when everywhere beyond the settled areas was inhabited by strange and wondrous beings; monsters, warlocks, and daemons.
It must have been fascinating to be a child back then.
Everything was terrifying.

Um. Oh wait.

Run.

Fortunately those things have become rare.

It is probably worth keeping in mind that alcohol was invented several millenia years ago, whereas caffeinated beverages were discovered barely twelve centuries ago and not commonly enjoyed until the past few hundred years.


Early alcoholic beverages were semi-controlled and haphazard spoilage of grain soups; very probably these had some quite disturbing and unforeseen side effects, especially when people became roaring drunk or woke up with hangovers.
It was a more exciting age.



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IT IS NEITHER THIS NOR THAT

The proportions are okay, but the lines aren't as taut as they should have been. The little bird part turns out to be harder than I expected, and I am not pleased with the result. The heart underneath could also have been more incised at the line junctions.

These are all major details. Though if it was engraved on a seal stone, it would pass, what with the issues I have mentioned being much smaller.

Phonetic nan (𦰩󠄂), next to a short tailed bird (隹), over a heart (心).
Filed under the latter. Twenty three strokes.
戁 To fear or stand in awe (of).
Pronounced 'naan'.

不震不動、不戁不竦 'pat jan pat tong, pat naan pat song'.
Not trembling or moving, and neither scared nor hesitant.

The citation above is from the Book of Songs (詩經 'si king'), which was compiled over two and a half millenia ago.



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CULINARY NOTES: STEW

There are times when going through a dictionary of Chinese characters yields some rather delightful mental images, especially when you are aware of archaic forms of the characters. Those being the forms incised on tortoise shells and scapulae for divination purposes, which gave birth to the words engraved into the casting forms for bronze ritual vessels and enscribed in records, carved on stone, grooved boldly into stellae.
Under 鼎 ('ding'; tripodal bronze cauldron, cooking vessel), one will find 䵼 ('seung'; to cook, to boil, to stew). Which, because it's both complicated and no longer used, will not be in many dictionaries, and therefore allows the reader scope for fun re-interpretations.
Especially when taking the phonetic element into account.
將
Which sounds like sauce, jam, commanding officer.
A general of the army.

ELEGANTLY COOKING A GENERAL IN A BRONZE STEW POT.

AND REDUCING HIM TO SAUCE.

Twenty four strokes.
䵼
Shows up in old commentaries as well as descriptions of ritual stuff. Basically a fancy word for "boiled". I think I prefer my version.



Ten generations ago one of my ancestors was a general in the revolutionary war. I do not know what happened to him afterwards, or how his remains were dealt with.
Perhaps I should research that.



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SOUTH OF THE FIVE RIDGES

The right leg of the head thing was tweaked a little, which is orthodox -- it's attested in the sources -- and the south character is not, as you might have expected and may have been taught, a sheep under a roof, but a set of chimes hung on a rack as might be used during ceremonies in the great hall. But other than that, it's not a particularly surprising set of seal script characters representing more or less the entire area from the five mountain ridges all the way down to below the red river.

The great southland, where people went to escape incessant war and the brutal exactations of feudal lords. As well as later getting away from the salt tax, snooty northerners, and rigid orthodoxy.

嶺南
LINGNAN

All in all, malaria was a small price to pay.

Settlers, brigands, smugglers.
Enterprising and hardy.

Remarkably, they wrote great operas about the generation after generation defense of the northern frontier, hardly anything at all about their own adventurous exploration and conquest of the jungles and swamps, or the bugs and poisonous things.

Possibly because literacy meant having the proper sensibilities and adhering to the accepted forms and norms. And the north, the Central Plain (中原 'jong yuen), was the homeland, as well as the heartland of civilization, whereas the southern edge of empire had no clear cultural definition.

Eagle wood, kingfisher feathers, pearls.
More rice, tea, and lacquer.
Lychees.



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STRANGE DREAMING

Yesterday I overdid the caffeine, nicotine, and general intellectual frustration. This meant that my sleep was more fractured than usual. And filled with dark blobs. A very large part of this was that the company I was among had some screws loose. Plus the effect of bloodpressure pills on sleep and subconscious images is well known. Tertiarily, the tobacco that I've been stuffing in my pipe (Palmetto Balkan, From Cornell & Diehl) brings back memories of my teenage years -- mostly the good parts -- including streets, alleys, and walls.
Eastern North Brabant; the light and shadow that was there then.

Total effect: semi psychedelic.
Somewhat disturbing.

Got up several times during the night to listen to Mandarin oldies. Twenties through the fifties. Not my era. Some lovely jazzy numbers, as well as plaintive ballads. These were the tunes to which I listened during the decade when I lived in North Beach, and although there were some very pleasant parts that was a time I am glad has passed.

I would not want to be the man I was then.

STRANGE DREAMS

Nor would I really want to meet that man.

But I keenly appreciate the people who not only met him, but also tolerated him. Particularly the bookseller and savage kitten (at that time identifying herself as 'Kermit The Frog', before she told me her name) stand out, as well as 'Lord Drummond', whom I taught how to make Kung Fu tea. George and Rotorhead, both ex marines. Rotorhead got shot out of the sky over Beirut during a little misadventure there. Even Duke Giro and the psychopath on Romolo Alley, both of whom have disappeared (which is probably fortunate).

There were also the people at two bookstores in Chinatown. One of which is largely defunct at this point because of the pandemic, the owner of the other one seems to have retired.


Savage Kitten was my girlfriend for a long time. We never got married, and for reasons which I still don't entirely understand she broke up with me several years ago. She is presently my apartment mate, a woman I trust around my stuff. We share some interests, and sometimes food, but we're different in many ways. There are times when I am not a very easy man with whom to get along. She does a stellar job in that regard. It's probably a good thing that her Aspergers prevents her from noticing several things about me.

I'm fairly sure my Aspergers occasionally makes me a blithering idiot.
And considerably more than average insensitive at times.

I remain grateful for the patience.



AFTERWORD

It was during the North Beach years that I became intersted in Chinese Seal script, Bronze Script, and and Oracle Bone Script. It is therefore fitting that the drawing above is the illustration here.

First character: 怪 ('gwaai'; strange, weird, peculiar), heart as the radical under which it will be found in the dictionary, next to a phonetic compound originally homophonous with ghost, daemon, or supernatural entity (鬼 'gwai'; a being of frightening appearance with a tail or trace emanation behind it).

Second character: 夢 ('mung'; dream), a sentient human, shown by the eye (with eyebrows) and dangling body over a bed, which was replaced with a moon (夕 'jik'; evening, dusk) indicating night in later script.



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FEEDING THE TURKEY VULTURE

One of my friends enjoyed my recent slew of Chinese sealscript stuff very much, which pleases me no end. Another one wonders at the usefulness of so odd a knowledge set. Does it have any worthwhile application, or is it just like J. R. R. Tolkien's Elvish or Startrek's Klingon? Well, yes and no. Sealscript is one of several things that scholars have always appreciated, particularly for its appearance and insight into the origins of the Chinese writing system. And both seal and bronze script brush calligraphy in addition to being beautiful and sometimes exceedingly elegant can also be used to lend graphic gravitas to enterprises, literary expression, and objects or paintings that are suited to the book room.

Sometimes businesses would advertise themselves with signboards in sealscript, diplomatically aiming for a certain class.

The possible uses even in the modern age are endless.

Such as feeding the turkey vulture. This morning when I was preparing for work Sydney Fylbert perched on my bed loudly squawking that I needed to bring back some fatty inner thighs, bring back some fatty inner thighs! He believes that there must be tonnes of those at my work, and surely I can whack one of the doddering old fossils over the head and harvest the choicest meats? Nobody will miss them! Perhaps it's "bring your turkey vulture to work day", and he can come along to point out likely victims. It will be enriching for everyone.

餵鷲仔食
['wai jau jai sik']
Feeding the turkey vulture

I have, several times, explained to him that doing as he suggested would get me in trouble. And yes, all of those tiresome old farts do have nearests and dearests who would wonder at their absences, maybe the old codfish ran off with a voluptuous temptress and is even now spending junior's college funds best call the cops to file a missing person report and get the ball rolling on tracking him down for child support or gaining access to his assets as well as any insurance payouts if he "accidentally" croaked.

SYDNEY FYLBERT LOOKING HUNGRY

Anyhow, when I got home I fed the little fella. He's belching happily as we speak.

From the point of view of a man who plays with graphics, the thematic echoing of curves and line directions, angles and spaces, in seal script "drawings", can be infinitely engaging.
It's visual pleasure that I can't really explain.



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MEANINGLESS OLD WORDS

We often speak of Chinese as being 'ideographic' -- that is to say the written characters represent ideas or concepts -- but in fact that is not accurate by a long shot. In all versions of Chinese there are written characters that represent sounds more than ideas; that which is expressed is the sound, and only by the sound do we know what is meant. The two written characters of lute (琵琶 'pei paa') or bat (蝙蝠 'pin fuk') have no actual meaning other than their sounds, they are not used separately for anything else. The radicals do not necessarily add meaning, but merely serve to identify the complete characters as parts of the musical instrument category and buggy whatchamacallit categories respectively.

The two characters illustrated below are perfect examples.
They don't exist as useful words other than combined.
They are almost never needed anyway.

鄋瞞 was a barbarian territory during the bronze age which no longer exists, having long ago been subsumed. It is mentioned in the Spring And Autumn Commentary (春秋左傳) as well as the writings of the grand historian.

Almost nothing is known about Souman or its people.
Even the ancient writings hardly speak of it.



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A TIMID CHARACTER

Some words in the dictionary are nearly useless. For example, an obscure word for an animal that is commonly known by other names, such as 'mintikin' for ant. And although charming and empowering to use in conversation and in a paragraph, once or twice, it is irritating when used any further, being merely a "literary" affectation and oddment.

Mintikin shows up in The Brothers Karamazov.

The only time I've used it is here.


Archaicisms, dialect, and obscure literary fragments. Also numerous items in Chinese dictionaries. Under the 臣 radical we find the unusual character 臩 (Mand. Guang, Cant. 'gwong'), defined as: startled, embarrassed, shy; scared to the point of running away. Reference: 臦 and 囧 and note that the latter is, appropriately, an emoticon for embarrasment or helplessness. Used as the personal nomen of a court official tasked with admonishing a territory under King Mu. 穆王閔文武之道缺。乃命伯臩申誡大僕之政。
From the 周本纪 (Book of Zhou): [When King Mu came to the throne, the Spring and Autumn Period had already passed fifty.] The king's way was declining, and King Mu, Min, lacked the way of civil and military affairs. He ordered 伯臩 to admonish the government of Taishou.

And that's pretty much the only place you will find 臩 because it was not a commonly used word for over two millenia.

Calligraphically it has symmetry and great elegance.
But other than artistically, it is useless.
In seal script it rocks.



NOTE: I found this character while stumbling through the dictionary, and had to research it.
I like the way it looks in seal script. But I cannot think of any use for what I found.
Curiosity value, maybe transcribing old stuff, that's it.

I often stumble through the dictionary.
It's fun.



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PALMETTO BALKAN REVIEW

One of the first things to mention is the appetizing mouthfeel. Followed by cumulative taste sensations: creamy, tangy, mild fruitiness, coupled with an almost incense-like quality from the Cypriot, supported by the resins of the Turks. It's smoky, but this is not a Latakia bomb, strengthwise being in the same broad category as several Dunhill mixtures, as well as rather reminiscent of the mid to full range of Drucquer blends as those were in the seventies and early eighties, before surreal blend shift (components becoming unavailable and unwise substitutions being made), and years before Greg Pease's expert reformulations.

This is a subtle and pleasingly balanced tobacco blend which will, never-the-less, trigger the Berkeleyite vegan Guatamalan hippie rag wearers in your household. They'll probably burn sage and force you to do ayahuasca to expell the evil spirit that has gotten hold of you, as well as dance with crystals and magic beads.

Be grateful that they will not do a nouveau native American ceremony that involves burning tobacco, chanting, sweating, and drumming. The tobacco suitable for that is mediocre crap purchased by Northern California suburbanites getting in touch with their spiritual side.


Normally I'm somewhat Cynical about limited edition smoking products and "small batches". But one tin was dented, so we sacrificed it and opened it up. I overwhelmingly smoke Virginia and Virginia Perique mixtures nowadays, having veered from Balkans a decade or more ago.
Haven't as a habit smoked stuff like this in years

So I bought some.

After sampling the product.

No spiritual people were harmed. But if they interfere with my enjoyment of this very nice tobacco, they quite likely will be. My spirit animal is a rabid skunk. A two million year old rabid skunk, to be precise. I savaged Princess Pew Bag in her previous incarnation as a noble woman from Atlantis.


PALMETTO BALKAN
Blended by Jeremy Reeves.
Cornell & Diehl.

Small batch, only three thousand (8 oz.) tins produced. Oriental (Izmir from 2019, Basma from 2018) leaf with red and bright Virginias and Latakia. An easy and enjoyable smoke, for the fan of medium to medium full English and Balkan blends, very reminiscent of splendid products from years ago.


And yes, Totoro likes it also. Ten years ago he would often join me on the roof of the office building after a Saturday getting more done on a day off than with all my coworkers around during the work week. Since then, he's been a great team player. With educated tastes.

This pipe tobacco makes me think of things.

Imagine a PHD candidate smoking this regularly while checking the footnotes in her thesis. Something impossibly in-depth about the deliberate overlap between visual representations and secondary meanings in Chinese seal script texts (篆書 Chuan Shu), particularly in Stone Drum Script (石鼓文 Shi Gu Wen), and what the influence of this was on later calligraphers.

I would in relation thereto most especially draw your attention to Wu Changshuo (吳昌碩), a deservedly famous modern master of the brush, who also carved seals.

His archaic script calligraphy is evocative, rich, and stimulating. It has a depth and strength that's altogether extraordinary.


I've had a lot of caffeine between when I first sampled it and now.
It's highly probably that I'm not entirely sane at present.
Some crash and burn is to be expected.

TOBACCO INDEX


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IN WHICH THE YOUNG ARE BAFFLING

There were four tables with only Chinese diners. One table with only white diners (well, one diner; me). And one table with a Chinese woman and a white guy. Which was the only table with cell-phones in use. That table confused me.

'Dude, you're eating dinner with a young woman, can't you at least act like it? She dressed for the occasion, whereas you look like a schlub. And you didn't shave in at least two days.
I mean, if you had shaved, and dressed neatly (poor is okay, provided it's presentable and clean), it would look like she meant something to you. As an example, I have shaved and showered and these clothes are more than fairly decent. I've dressed like I want to be treated; you look dissipated. Did you even bathe yourself today?'

'And you, miss, why are you seeing this putz?'

'And put your phones down!'

Honestly, that waiter was an absolute prince. Even spoke in English to both of them, so as not to embarrass the dumb dingo. Given that people tip like misers in Chinese restaurants anyhow, he need not have bothered. Probably felt a measure of co-Chineseness with the young woman, all men (and women) are brothers (siblings) and all that, and he may have qualities which being a genius she can discern though no one else can.

An older Chinatown person would have assumed the worst.

She's being blackmailed! Yes, that must be it!

The last time I had a meal with a Chinese person (my apartment mate), I could tell that the restaurant owner was observing us with fascinated curiosity, and scarcely put at ease by my speaking Cantonese. 'How delicious! An elderly rapscallion and a sweet young thing! Ooh!' There wasn't anything like that going on, but my apartment mate looks ten or twenty years younger than she actually is and very much like an innocent good girl, whereas I look like a knowing old sot. Especially by comparison, in harsh lighting.
But at least I can act like I'm a gentleman.
And I'll dress properly.


Obviously my stern questions above were not uttered out loud. It's none of my business, and if she sees something in him that the rest of us don't, more power to her.
Both of them are very lucky.


And that roast goose was absolutely fabulous. Haven't had it yonks, so it really seemed even more delicious. Plus the plateau of glistening tender baby bok choi on which it lay was a great foil for the savoury oily flesh. Great food, delightful surroundings.
Jade-like greens, goose fat, plus plenty of hot sauce.
And a cold glass of milk tea also.
Hoo boy!


As an afterthought, here's the seal script version of 夓 which I mentioned in yesterday's post. Did this after I came home. Consulted two dictionaries and an etymological reference.

Seal script is derived in the main from the Zhou bronze script, and was used till roughly two centuries before the start of the common era. It is ancestral to the modern script, by which I mean the brush-written characters in daily use for the past two thousand years.
More pictographic, yes. That does not mean instantly intelligible.
It's a specialized field nowadays.


This version of 夓 is based on versions in both the bamboo slip script (簡牘) in use from 1200 BCE till after 400 BCE, and the lesser seal script (小篆). It was great fun to do.



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AREN'T YOU GLAD YOU ASKED?

A friend asked wether a recently Facebook-posted illustration was self-representational and done with tobacco ashes. Naturally I could not resist responding with an entirely straightface, seriously, and seemingly oblivious to her jest.

Dry brush calligraphy, seal-script version of 華 。A variant shows a closer derivation from the ancient form: 䔢。Pronounced 'waa' (Cantonese). Representing, anciently, pistil and stamen plus petals (a flower), hence, by extension and further linguistic development: flowery, elegant, ornate, and then by a further usage development over the centuries an appellation for China. Distantly ablautive of 夏 (Xia, 'haa'), which in the narrow sense means 'summer', and because it was the name of one of the dynasties (circa four thousand years ago) is also used for China and the Chinese. A variant of 夏 is 夓。Which in addition to the hand underneath holding the vessel upward, has hands on the side indicating a plurality of celebrants at a ritual, and hence a cooperative or community event. 華 is filed under the grass radical (艸 'chou') in the dictionary. Because it got 'borrowed' for other meanings, 花 ('faa') became the more common term for flower. In Mandarin they still sound nearly the same. And note that a variant of 花 wich has the same strokes in the same order (芲) is somewhat confusing to the modern mainlander, because what looks like the phonetic element (仑) is pronounced 'luen', rather than 'faa' (化 "transform"). 仑 is, it seems, only used as a phonetic, an easy script version of 侖 ('luen'; "logical order", "arrangement").
Which is the right-hand part of this: 棆 ('luen'; "camphor" [archaic]).

The two characters in question:

It is likely that I'll end up doing a seal-script version of 夓 soon; it seems interesting and appropriate or germaine, and I kind of feel obligated.
It's a bit Aspy. So yeah, um.

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THE AVOIDANCE OF ANTS, SNAKES, AND BUGS

As if we didn't have enough to worry about, with earthquakes, forest fires, covid, East Coast Pizza, and fundamentalist Christian missionairies intent on dragging us away from our sinful hedonism, there's now one more thing: ferocious jumping worms. Amynthas agrestis.
New harbinger of the apocalypse. I do not know what to make of this.

So I read Wikipedia. Fat lot of help that was.

Elsewhere I found a list of translated names for the critter. 跳蟲 ('tiu chung'; "jump creepy-crawly")，亞洲跳蟲 ('ngaa jau tiu chung'; "Asia jump creepy-crawly"), 瘋狂蠕蟲 ('fung kwong yiu chung'; "insane worm"), 阿拉巴馬跳線蟲 ('aa laa baa maa tiu sin chung'; "Alabama nematode"), 蛇蟲 ('se chung'; "snake creepy-crawly").
Thanks internet, I feel a whole lot better.

The most common terms are 跳蟲 and 瘋狂蠕蟲。

蛇蟲 is a misleading term, as it can also mean (ants), snakes , and insects.
As in 善棺槨，所以避螻蟻蛇蟲也。

From Master Lü's Spring And Autumn Annals (呂氏春秋), regarding 孟冬紀，節喪: 古之人有藏於廣野深山而安者矣，非珠玉國寶之謂也，葬不可不藏也。葬淺則狐狸抇之，深則及於水泉。故凡葬必於高陵之上，以避狐狸之患、水泉之溼。此則善矣，而忘姦邪盜賊寇亂之難，豈不惑哉？譬之若瞽師之避柱也，避柱而疾觸杙也。狐狸水泉姦邪盜賊寇亂之患，此杙之大者也。慈親孝子避之者，得葬之情矣。善棺槨，所以避螻蟻蛇蟲也。

Translation
Burials: In ancient times, there were people who secreted them in the vast fields and deep mountains and (they) were safe. They were not called national treasures of pearls and jade, and they must be hidden for burial. If it is buried shallow, it will be touched by a fox; if it is buried deep enough, it will reach a spring. Therefore, all burials must be on the high tombs to avoid the foxes and the dampness of the water springs. This is good, but is it not confusing to forget the problems of betrayal, thieves, bandits and rebellion? For example, it is like a blind teacher avoiding the pillar, avoiding the pillar and quickly touching the scorpion. Foxes (often powerful shape-shifting magical creatures), water sources, and troubles with thieves and robbers are enormous in this period, to be guarded against by loving parents and filial sons, in burials. Good caskets (棺槨), so as to avoid ants, snakes and insects.


This is not only quite fascinating, but also boring as all git out.
And to my knowledge 狐狸精 are not an issue here.
Neither auspicious, nor malevolent.



狐狸精
['wu lei jing']

If nine tailed foxes become an item of news media furor, OTHER than feral cosplayers of characters in Rumiko Takahashi manga, then we can start worrying. By then 猫鬼 ('maau kwai'; cat daemons, nekomata) will probably also be rather common.

I for one will welcome our mythological furry overlords.

Kent Brockman: Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our viewers to crack each others heads open and feast on the goo inside?

Professor: Yes I would, Kent.

And there you have it.
News in a nutshell.



Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of thy counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither countest thou two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three.




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