Those who see well
Posted: January 10, 2017 Filed under: Music Leave a comment
There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.
The resulting pictures lack the complex composition and textures of ordinary painting, but it is said that those who see well find something captured that escapes explanation.
Bill Evans, Liner notes, Kind of Blue, 1959, Columbia Records
For our defence
Posted: December 14, 2016 Filed under: Shooting Leave a commentWhereas the late King James the Second by the Assistance of diverse evill Councellors Judges and Ministers imployed by him did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant Religion and the Lawes and Liberties of this Kingdome (list of grievances including) … by causing severall good Subjects being Protestants to be disarmed at the same time when Papists were both Armed and Imployed contrary to Law, (Recital regarding the change of monarch) … thereupon the said Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons pursuant to their respective Letters and Elections being now assembled in a full and free Representative of this Nation takeing into their most serious Consideration the best meanes for attaining the Ends aforesaid Doe in the first place (as their Auncestors in like Case have usually done) for the Vindicating and Asserting their ancient Rights and Liberties, Declare (list of rights including) … That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law.
English Bill of Rights, 1689
While you live
Posted: August 7, 2016 Filed under: Songs Leave a commentWhile you live, shine
have no grief at all
life exists only for a short while
and time demands an end.
Seikilos epitaph, 1st century AD. Engraved on a tombstone near Aydın, Turkey
All form originated from spirit
Posted: April 19, 2016 Filed under: Create Leave a commentEvery form, even though it becomes traditional, and finally becomes academic, originally came from someone’s spirit who created the form. Then it was picked up and taught in schools after that. But all form originated from spirit.
Gil Evans,1972. International Musician
Live fire: a mere validation of your dry practice
Posted: June 2, 2015 Filed under: Shooting Leave a commentThere is a way to develop a high level of skill without firing a single shot.
It is called dry practice.
Dry practice is the effort a student puts forth off the range at home, with an unloaded firearm.
Dry practice allows you to execute perfect repetitions of all gun handling manipulations without the distracting muzzle blast or recoil.
Live fire is an important but minor part of the training.
Look at live fire as a mere validation of your dry practice.
The daily dry practice is the training; the occasional live-firing drill is the final exam.
Gabriel Suarez, 1999. The Tactical Rifle; USA, Paladin Press
The rifle – it’s personal
Posted: May 26, 2015 Filed under: Shooting Leave a comment
Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is the queen of personal weapons. The possession of a good rifle, as well as the skill to use it well, truly makes a man the monarch of all he surveys. It realizes the ancient dream of the Jovian thunderbolt, and as such it is the embodiment of personal power. For this reason it exercises a curious influence over the minds of most men, and in its best examples it constitutes an object of affection unmatched by any other inanimate object.
Jeff Cooper, 1997. The Art of the Rifle; USA, Paladin Press
The woman answering this description
Posted: February 5, 2015 Filed under: Pomes Leave a comment5ft 3in
Slim
And with a long back
Being an intellectual
Posted: March 25, 2014 Filed under: Intellectuals Leave a commentThese are funny words actually, I mean being an ‘intellectual’ has almost nothing to do with working with your mind; these are two different things. My suspicion is that plenty of people in the crafts, auto mechanics and so on, probably do as much or more intellectual work as people in the universities. There are plenty of areas in academia where what’s called ‘scholarly’ work is just clerical work, and I don’t think clerical work’s more challenging than fixing an automobile engine—in fact, I think the opposite….
Noam Chomsky, 2002. Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, New York, The New Press
Good men with rifles
Posted: August 6, 2013 Filed under: Shooting Leave a commentThe rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and, while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.
Jeff Cooper, 1997. The Art of the Rifle; USA, Paladin Press
Under the law
Posted: April 9, 2013 Filed under: Philosophy Leave a commentThe more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.
Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome
No Zen Mind 