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A Dangerous Method


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A Dangerous Method is a 2011 historical film directed by David Cronenberg and starring Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley and Vincent Cassel.
The screenplay was adapted by Academy Award-winning writer Christopher Hampton from his 2002 stage play The Talking Cure, which was based on the 1993 non-fiction book by John Kerr, A Most Dangerous Method: the story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein.

The film marks the third consecutive and overall collaboration between Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen (after A History of Violence and Eastern Promises).
This is also the third Cronenberg film made with British film producer Jeremy Thomas, after completing together the William Burroughs adaptation Naked Lunch and the J.G. Ballard adaptation Crash.
A Dangerous Method was a German/Canadian co-production.
The film premiered at The 68th Venice Film Festival and was also featured at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.

Plot

Set on the eve of World War I, A Dangerous Method is based on the turbulent relationships between Carl Jung, founder of analytical psychology, Sigmund Freud, founder of the discipline of psychoanalysis, and Sabina Spielrein, initially a patient of Jung and later a physician and one of the first female psychoanalysts.

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SOURCE: "A Dangerous Method"
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Victorian prudery



Clothing covered the entire body, we are told, and even the glimpse of an ankle was scandalous.
Critics contend that corsets constricted women's bodies and women's lives.
Homes are described as gloomy, dark, cluttered with massive and over-ornate furniture and proliferating bric-a-brac.

Myth has it that even piano legs were scandalous, and covered with tiny pantalettes.


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Of course, much of this is untrue, or a gross exaggeration.

Corsets stressed a woman's sexuality, exaggerating hips and bust by contrast with a tiny waist.
Women's ball gowns bared the shoulders and the tops of the breasts.
The jersey dresses of the 1880s may have covered the body, but the stretchy novel fabric fitted the body "like a glove".

There is no actual evidence that piano legs were considered scandalous.
Pianos and tables were often draped with shawls or cloths—but if the shawls hid anything, it was the cheapness of the furniture.
There are references to lower-middle-class families covering up their pine tables rather than show that they couldn't afford mahogany.

The piano leg story seems to have originated in Captain Frederick Marryat's 1839 book, Diary in America, as a satirical comment on American prissiness.

Victorian manners, however, may have been as strict as imagined—on the surface.
One simply did not speak publicly about sex, childbirth, and such matters, at least in the respectable middle and upper classes.
However, as is well known, discretion covered a multitude of sins.
Prostitution flourished.
Upper-class men and women indulged in adulterous liaisons.

Victorian Women



Some people now look back on the Victorian era with wistful nostalgia.
Historians would say that this is as much a distortion of the real history as the stereotypes emphasizing Victorian repression and prudery.
Women were not allowed to swim, for it would be frowned upon as "bad etiquette".
Women also had to wear special suits to ride bikes.

Also notable is a contemporary counter-cultural trend called steampunk.
Those who dress steampunk often wear Victorian-style clothing that has been "tweaked" in edgy ways: tattered, distorted, melded with Goth fashion, Punk, and Rivethead styles.
Another example of Victorian fashion being incorporated into a contemporary style is the Gothic and Classic Lolita Fashion culture.

Victorian Women

and Prostitution

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SOURCE:　"Victorian Prudery"
PICTURES: from the Denman Library

Often, I will ask myself what the best use of my day will be and, for a great part of it, I do manage to accomplish worthwhile activies ... like exercising, time in nature, contact with friends, rest, reading and contemplating ...



BUT there is still wasted slack time that's for sure.
...guess it's a dance we all have to learn---the dance of living a worthwhile life, don't you think?

Memories of

Saint Germain des Prés



In spring, I was sitting in the cafe of Saint Germain des Prés.
It was raining and cold.
I've taken two cups of café au lait.

Soon it started downpouring.
Nobody walked outside.
I looked out blankly when an old woman came in with a mandolin, followed by two dogs with drooping ears.
The old lady in a shaggy overcoat and the two dogs were soaked up in the rain.

The lady sat down at a table near me.
After wiping her dogs, she then wiped herself.
She was about 70 years old, apparently one of the street artists of Saint Germain des Prés.
Both dogs were gentle, tightly wrapped up for protection with a tiny blanket.

When a boy came in, the old lady ordered two café au lait, hot milk, and a snack.
The boy didn't throw out two wet dogs.
In Paris people care about dogs as much as themselves.

When the boy brought the drinks, the old lady took out a pan from her luggage, and poured some milk into it, then gave each dog some food.
Both dogs started licking warm milk happily.

The lady also sipped café au lait, holding the cup with cold-numb hands.
Relieved somewhat, I glanced at the adorable dogs once in a while.

Aftre half an hour, the old lady took out her purse and cheked into it, then she called the boy and asked for a favor.
Apparently, she didn't have enough money.

Although I was poor myself at the time, I couldn't ignore the scene, and walked up and paid on her behalf.
It wasn't much anyway.
The old lady thanked me a lot, saying that she would pay later after doing her performances on the street.

"Oh, don't bother. It was my present for your adorable dogs."
I like animals. 　So, I really meant it.

"Well, they are brothers, and I love both," said the old warm-hearted lady.

Whenever I walk through Saint Germain des Prés, the lady and the dogs come into my mind, warming my heart.

(Note: Picture from the Denman library
Translated by Kato)

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SOURCE: "My heart's in Paris"
by Fujiko Hemming
５７ページ 『我が心のパリ』
著者： フジ子・へミング
２００５年２月２５日 初版発行
発行所： 株式会社 阪急コミュニケーションズ

The Piano


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The Piano is a 1993 drama film about a mute pianist and her daughter, set during the mid-19th century in a rainy, muddy frontier backwater on the west coast of New Zealand.
The film was written and directed by Jane Campion, and stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin.

It features a score for the piano by Michael Nyman which became a bestselling soundtrack album.
Hunter played her own piano pieces for the film, and also served as sign language teacher for Paquin, earning three screen credits.

The Piano was a commercial and critical success, grossing more than $40 million, against its $7 million budget.
Holly Hunter and Anna Paquin received high praise for their role as Ada McGrath and Flora McGrath.
At the 66th Academy Awards, The Piano won three awards: Best Actress for Hunter, Best Supporting Actress for Paquin, and Best Original Screenplay.

Plot

The Piano tells the story of a mute Scotswoman, Ada McGrath (Holly Hunter), whose father sells her into marriage to a New Zealand frontiersman, Alistair Stewart (Sam Neill). She is shipped off along with her young daughter Flora McGrath (Anna Paquin). The voice that the audience hears is not her speaking voice, but her mind's voice. Ada has not spoken a word since she was six years old, expressing herself instead through her piano playing and through sign language for which her daughter has served as the interpreter.

Flora, it is later learned, is the product of a relationship with a teacher whom Ada believed she could control with her mind, making him love her, but who "became frightened and stopped listening," and thus left her.

Ada, Flora, and their belongings, including the piano, are deposited on a New Zealand beach by the ship's crew against her angry objections. As there is no one there to meet them, they spend the night alone, sheltering under a tiny tent made of a hoop skirt frame. The following day, Alistair arrives with a Māori crew and his friend Baines (Harvey Keitel), a fellow forester and a retired sailor, who has adopted many of the Māori customs.

While he socially allies himself with the Māori, Baines has steadfastly refused any sexual activity with Māori women. But he clearly finds Ada attractive due to her passion for music. Baines eventually retrieves the instrument and suggests that Alistair trade it — and lessons from Ada — for some land that Alistair wants.
Alistair consents, oblivious to the budding attraction between Ada and Baines. She is surprised to find that he has had the piano put into perfect tune after its rough journey. He asks to simply listen rather than learn to play himself, and then offers to let her buy the piano back, one key at a time, by letting him do "things he likes" while she plays. Ada reluctantly agrees, as she is attracted to Baines.

Ada and Alistair have had no sexual, or even mildly affectionate, interaction even though they are by now formally married. Baines is sexually aroused by Ada's playing to the point that he openly approaches her. Finally, she yields to her own desire one afternoon, and she and Baines have intercourse. Alistair finally begins to suspect the love affair and after discovering them, he angrily boards up his home with Ada inside when he goes off to work on his timberland.

After that interlude, Ada avoids Baines and feigns affection with Alistair, though her caresses only serve to frustrate him more because when he makes a move to touch her in return, she pulls away. Before Alistair departs on his next journey, he asks Ada if she will go to see Baines — she shakes her head no — and he tells her he trusts that she won't go to him while he's gone.

Soon after, Ada sends her daughter with a package for Baines, containing a single piano key with an inscribed love declaration that says "dear George, you will have my heart, Ada McGrath". Flora has begun to accept Alistair as her "papa" and is angered by her mother's infidelity. She brings the piano key instead to Alistair. After reading the love note burnt onto the piano key, Alistair furiously returns home and cuts off Ada's index finger with an axe to deprive her of the ability to play her piano. He then sends Flora to Baines with the severed finger wrapped in cloth, with the message that if Baines ever attempts to see Ada again, he will chop off more fingers.

After Ada recovers from her injury, Alistair sends her and Flora away with Baines and dissolves their marriage. They depart from the same beach on which she first landed in New Zealand. While being rowed to the ship with her baggage and the piano tied onto a Maori longboat, Ada feels that the piano is ruined as she can no longer play and insists that Baines throw the piano overboard. As it sinks, she deliberately puts her foot into the loop of rope trailing overboard. She is rapidly pulled deep underwater connected by the rope to the piano — but then she changes her mind and kicks free to be pulled back into the boat.

In an epilogue, she describes her new life with Baines and Flora in Nelson, where she has started to give piano lessons in their new home, and her severed finger has been replaced with a silver finger made by Baines.

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SOURCE: "The Piano"
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You are in



a good shape!

Tai chi (太極拳)

T'ai chi ch'uan (simplified Chinese: 太极拳; traditional Chinese: 太極拳), often shortened to T'ai chi or Tai chi in the West, is a type of internal Chinese martial art practiced for both its defense training and its health benefits.
It is also typically practiced for a variety of other personal reasons: its hard and soft martial art technique, demonstration competitions, and longevity.
As a consequence, a multitude of training forms exist, both traditional and modern, which correspond to those aims.
Some of t'ai chi ch'uan's training forms are especially known for being practiced at what most people categorize as slow movement.

Today, t'ai chi ch'uan has spread worldwide.
Most modern styles of t'ai chi ch'uan trace their development to at least one of the five traditional schools: Chen, Yang, Wu/Hao, Wu, and Sun.

The term t'ai chi ch'uan translates as "supreme ultimate fist", "boundless fist", "great extremes boxing", or simply "the ultimate."
Note that chi in this instance is the Wade-Giles transliteration of the Pinyin jí, and is distinct from qì (or chi 氣), which means "life energy".

The concept of the Taiji ("supreme ultimate") appears in both Taoist and Confucian Chinese philosophy, where it represents the fusion or mother of Yin and Yang into a single Ultimate, represented by the Taijitu symbol.
T'ai chi theory and practice evolved in agreement with many Chinese philosophical principles, including those of Taoism and Confucianism.

T'ai chi training involves five elements, nei gung, tui shou (response drills), sanshou (self defence techniques), weapons, and solo hand routines, known as forms (套路 taolu).
While t'ai chi ch'uan is typified by some for its slow movements, many t'ai chi styles (including the three most popular - Yang, Wu, and Chen) have secondary forms of a faster pace.
Some traditional schools of t'ai chi teach partner exercises known as "pushing hands", and martial applications of the forms' postures.

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SOURCE: "T'ai chi ch'uan"
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bodhidharma

達磨（ダルマ）



Bodhidharma was a Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th-6th century and is traditionally credited as the leading patriarch and transmitter of Zen to China.

According to Chinese legend, he also began the physical training of the Shaolin monks that led to the creation of Shaolinquan. However, martial arts historians have shown this legend stems from a 17th century chigong manual known as the Yijin Jing.

Little contemporary biographical information on Bodhidharma is extant, and subsequent accounts became layered with legend, but most accounts agree that he was a Tamil prince from southern India's Pallava Empire. Scholars have concluded his place of birth to be Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu.

After becoming a Buddhist monk, Bodhidharma traveled to China. The accounts differ on the date of his arrival, with one early account claiming that he arrived during the Liú Sòng Dynasty (420–479) and later accounts dating his arrival to the Liáng Dynasty (502–557). Bodhidharma was primarily active in the lands of the Northern Wèi Dynasty (386–534). Modern scholarship dates him to about the early 5th century.

Throughout Buddhist art, Bodhidharma is depicted as a rather ill-tempered, profusely bearded and wide-eyed barbarian. He is described as "The Blue-Eyed Barbarian" in Chinese texts.



The Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall (952) identifies Bodhidharma as the 28th Patriarch of Buddhism in an uninterrupted line that extends all the way back to the Buddha himself. D.T. Suzuki contends that Zen's growth in popularity during the 7th and 8th centuries attracted criticism that it had "no authorized records of its direct transmission from the founder of Buddhism" and that Zen historians made Bodhidharma the 28th patriarch of Buddhism in response to such attacks.

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SOURCE:　Wikipedia
PICTURES: from the Denman Library

無為無事の人

(Be born-free again)

Saint Simeon



Saint Simeon Stylites or Symeon the Stylite (c. 390 – 2 September 459) was a Christian ascetic saint who achieved fame because he lived for 39 years on a small platform on top of a pillar near Aleppo in Syria.

Several other stylites later followed his model (the Greek word style means pillar).

He is known formally as Saint Simeon Stylites the Elder to distinguish him from Simeon Stylites the Younger and Simeon Stylites III.